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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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REVEREND AMERICA

Kris Saknussemm

A story of love, murder, and unexpected redemption in New Depression America
Meet Casper, a.k.a. Mathias Gaspenny: Skeleton-thin albino, former child evangelist and faith healer, con-artist, orphan, rape victim, mental health patient. And murderer. His journey across an America long with unemployment lines and foreclosed houses hearkens back to the trials of the Dustbowl migration of the 1930s. Only it's not the Dirty '30s when hardscrabble people of the heartland faced the challenges of bankruptcy, homelessness and the struggle for healthcare and nutrition. It's happening now. This complicated, proud Pale Rider discovers along the way a makeshift family of strangers and pilgrims, including a firecracker of a young teenage prostitute, nine months pregnant; and a dementia-ridden old folksinger and would-be communist. This unlikely trio sets out on a mission of communal self-discovery that leads them to the bayous of Louisiana, still recovering from the hardships of Hurricane Katrina and the neglect of federal agencies. Hope for tomorrow always comes at a price, but there is wisdom in endurance-and grace in survival.
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Published 2012-02-01 by Dark Coast Press

Comments

"...the veins of Reverend America are the highways of the United States, the pulse deeply human and lined with grit. Saknussemm's previous novels have each had something of the speculative to them - Zanesville was apocalyptic sci-fi, Private Midnight vampire noir. The new one is distinctly earthbound, dealing out the sacred and the profane in equal measures, salvation holding hands with criminality all the way through." Read more...

“Saknussemm is a rare visionary of American culture, a fearless artist with his very own skew on the western world. Reverend America is brilliant!”

“At various times funny, bittersweet, tragic, and terrifying, the book and its central character are sympathetic and memorable.” Read more...

"Dangerous, hilarious, wildly imagined, weird as a carnival midway, and real and tragic as blues harmonica. Reverend America is blisteringly good. Kris Saknussemm is red-hot and smoking."

“[A] picaresque tale of a prodigy albino orphan criss-crossing the country to heal a big tent of weird but heart-warming losers.” Read more...