Synopses & Reviews
Stripped down and stylized—Winters Bone plus Less Than Zero—the sharpest, boldest, brashest debut of the yearMeet Nikki, the most determined young woman in the Carolina hills. Shes determined not to let the expectations of society set her future; determined to use all the limited tools at her disposal to shape the world to her will; determined to preserve her familys domination of the local drug trade despite the fact that her parents are gone. Nikki is thirteen years old.
Opening with a death-defying plunge off a high cliff into a tiny swimming hole, Young God refuses to slow down for a moment as it charts Nikkis battles against the powers that be. Katherine Faw Morris has stripped her prose down to its bare essence—certain chapters are just a few words long—resulting in an electric, electrifying reading experience that wont soon be forgotten. She quickly gets to the core of Nikki, her young heroine, whos only just beginning to learn about her power over the people around her—learning too early, perhaps, but also just soon enough, if not too late.
Evoking the staccato, telegraphic storytelling style of James Ellroy but with the literary affect of a young Denis Johnson and a fierce sense of place worthy of Flannery OConnor or Donna Tartt, Morris is a debut novelist who demands your attention—and Nikki is a character who will cut you if you let your attention waver.
Review
"This book is so clean and dirty: thirteen-year-old Nikkis nipples pop like buttons; Kool Kings come in a hard box; white goo tastes a little salty but mostly like nothing. The best dreams are of nothing. Except that it is not nothing. It is charged white space: These pages happen to you and now youre awakening, groping groggily to reconstruct. Get mixed up by it. Enter the single-wide and find some ecstasy with Katherine Faw Morris." —Richard Hell"Like a bullet, like a bolt of lightning, like a speeding car, this debut novel goes faster and harder than anything youre likely to read this year. Welcome to an astonishing talent, and an unforgettable heroine." —Stacey DErasmo, author of The Art of Intimacy"This is maybe the best first novel Ive read since Fight Club. It comes on like a few too many pulls of Wilkes County moonshine chased with some kind of punk rock Lucinda Williams and finishes with a hit of Dorothy Allisons Bastard Out of Carolina. Raw, spare, and goddamned poetic, this badass debut will haunt you." —Frank Bill, author of Crimes in Southern Indiana and Donnybrook"Sweet Jesus is Young God terrifying and great. Katherine Faw Morriss style is singular and ferocious and Nikki is one of the toughest, most electrifying, most unforgettable heroines I have ever encountered on the page. This is a furious blaze of a book that will rough you up and reorder your sense of the world and whats possible in it. Its a debut for the ages. Read it." —Laura van den Berg, author of The Isle of Youth"Young God is a poetic, grim, and beautifully dark novel about backwoods violence and horror recounted in a numbed, laconic voice. Morris writes with splendid economy, chapters short as contes, and plenty of slashing insights on the rough world of throwaway lives and varieties of wrong." —Daniel Woodrell, author of Winters Bone
About the Author
Katherine Faw Morris was born in northwest North Carolina. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two pit bulls.