The Sharpshooter Blues

ALA Notable Book; Mississippi Arts and Letters Fiction Award. Lewis Nordan’s remarkable third novel, THE SHARPSHOOTER BLUES, is in part a meditation on America’s love affair with blue-steel barrels and soft-tip bullets, and in part a look at the violence and loss that ensue when the guns come out to play one day in a small town. Just as his award-winning WOF WHISTLE illuminated the complexity of racism, Nordan’s new novel shines the brilliant flash of gunfire on love–between fathers and sons, between husbands and wives, between gay lovers, and between friends. At its heart is Hydro Raney, a boy who’s never grown up, a boy who wouldn’t hurt a soul. In THE SHARPSHOOTER BLUES, Nordan once again makes us laugh; then our helpless laughter turns first into weeping and then into wonder. “A comedy at least half as divine–and dark–as Dante’s own . . . a flat-out tour de force.”–Lee K. Abbott, Miami Herald; “This is not just a good book, this is a marvelous book.”-The Village Voice.