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Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
English
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QUIET UNTIL THE THAW

Alexandra Fuller

IN HER FIRST WORK OF FICTION, Alexandra Fuller has written a novel that traverses time and generations, following the story of two very different brothers as they – and their culture – grapple with their past, present, and future.
ALEXANDRA FULLER is the bestselling author of LEAVING BEFORE THE RAINS COME, COCKTAIL HOUR UNDER THE TREE OF FORGETFULNESS, THE LEGEND OF COLTON H. BRYANT, SCRIBBLING THE CAT, and DON'T LET'S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT. Born in England and raised in Africa, Fuller has lived in Wyoming since 1994.

Lakota Oglala Sioux Nation, South Dakota. Two Native American cousins, Rick Overlooking Horse and You Choose Watson, though bound by blood and by land, find themselves at odds as they grapple with the implications of their shared heritage. When escalating anger toward the injustices, historical and current, inflicted upon the Lakota people by the federal government leads to tribal divisions and infighting, the cousins go in separate directions: Rick chooses the path of peace; You Choose, violence.

Years pass, and as You Choose serves time in prison, Rick finds himself raising twin baby boys orphaned at birth in his meadow. As the twins mature from infants to young men, Rick immerses the boys in their ancestry, telling wonderful and terrible tales of how the whole world came to be and affirming their place in the universe as the result of all who have come before and will come behind. But when You Choose returns to the reservation after three decades behind bars, his anger manifests, forever disrupting the lives of Rick and the boys.

A complex tale that spans generations and geography, Quiet Until the Thaw conjures the implications of an oppressed history, how we are bound not just to immediate family but to all who have come before and will come after us, and, most of all, to the notion that everything was always, and is always, connected.
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Published 2017-08-01 by Penguin Press

Comments

“Fuller's kinship with Lakota traditions in this novel is palpable.”

Editions des Deux Terres/ Lattès

“Fuller's keen sense of engagement with a land ‘to which you now don't belong,' and her place as an outsider, make her a sympathetic storyteller. Her prose shimmers and vibrates with life in this excellent novel.” Read more...

“A lyrical tale of life on the Rez. . . A tender, wry homage to Native American wisdom and lore.”

“Fuller achieves what every creative writer with political and social concerns hopes to achieve, where the political issues of her text do not overwhelm her story with a heavy hand, and yet they are simultaneously a part of the visible and invisible forces at work on the characters' journeys. And what journeys they undertake In telling a story whose form embraces the Lakota Sioux's philosophies and distinctive life cycles, Quiet Until the Thaw doesn't just give us an authentic tale of a Native American people's journey. It offers up a distinctive view of America, and perhaps even pleas for a new understanding of how great American novels can be written.” Read more...

“Beloved for the string of gorgeous memoirs begun with Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Fuller here depicts the Lakota people of South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, particularly two cousins in conflict. Fluidly written, with no sanctimony and plenty of dark humor” Read more...

Bestselling Author Alexandra Fuller Talks New Novel: 'Quiet Until The Thaw' Read more...

"[...] This is an ardent, original and beautifully wrought book, one that deserves the benefit of the doubt." Read more...