PRE-ORDER: The Cannibal Owl

The Cannibal Owl, by Aaron Gwyn

**PRE-ORDER** Forthcoming Publication Date: January 28, 2025

*Pre-orders receive a free copy of Prose #22 (also by Aaron) or another Prose Series installment of your choice—let us know in the order notes*

Drifting through the broken plains of 1820s Texas, Aaron Gwyn's latest venture into the American frontier tells a riveting coming-of-age story. Inspired by the real-life figure Levi English, a settler who ran away to live with the Comanche (Nermernuh) People as a young boy, The Cannibal Owl follows his journey of not quite belonging within a community that is nevertheless kinder to him than his own family. When Levi is eventually forced to confront growing tensions among the tribal leaders, he must make difficult choices about loyalty and self-preservation amidst deep grief and unrelenting violence. A novella of cinematic prose steeped in Native culture, Levi's story evokes reflections on the complexities of identity against a stunning Southern Plains landscape.

Aaron Gwyn is the author of a story collection, Dog on the Cross (Algonquin Books, 2004, finalist for the 2005 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award), and three novels: The World Beneath (W.W. Norton, 2009), Wynne’s War (Mariner Books, 2014), and All God’s Children (Europa Editions, 2020, Winner of the 2021 Oklahoma Book Award, longlisted for the 2022 International Dublin Literary Award, and finalist for the 2021 Reading the West Award). His short stories have appeared in Esquire, McSweeney’s, The Missouri Review, Glimmer Train, Virginia Quarterly Review, Gettysburg Review, and the anthologies New Stories from the South and Best of the West. His narrative nonfiction, journalism, and articles have appeared in Esquire, The Huffington Post, The Missouri Review, Swamp Pink, The Spectator and anthologies from Creative Nonfiction. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is an associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte where he teaches fiction writing and contemporary American fiction.

Praise for The Cannibal Owl

“The Cannibal Owl tells a story that resonates with the deep and abiding connection we all have to the soil and the soul of the place we are from while exploring the themes of individualism, loss, and regret, set against a rugged yet ferociously beautiful landscape. One part Jack London, one part Larry McMurtry, The Cannibal Owl is a profoundly moving work.”

—S.A Cosby, New York Times-bestselling author of All the Sinners Bleed and Razorblade Tears

“Here is a story about the simple things we cannot get away from lest we sacrifice our humanity. A story of growing up, of first love, of the ways we become part of the lives of others and the way they become part of ours. Of compassion and selfishness and hatred and revenge. But most of all, this is a story about loss. The losses that come at the hands of others and those that arrive by our own doing. And finally, of time. Time takes all. Gwyn has given us an American story of a kind now rarely seen.”

—Sterling HolyWhiteMountain

“Gwyn conjures, with unsparing honesty, an ambitious vision of survival and acceptance. On a scale both intimate and epic, The Cannibal Owl immerses us in a tragic, intricate, and incisive dance of power and identity that I couldn’t put down.”

—Briley Jones, Editor of Yemassee, Member of the Comanche Tribe

“Aaron Gwyn is that rarest of things: the genuine article. His voice is his own—American, unafraid, spikily poetic—and in The Cannibal Owl he writes like a traveler on a lonely road with no turning till we’re all back to the Garden.” 

—Darin Strauss, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

"The joy and the job of historical fiction is to bridge the gap in time, and to get us under the skins of those we cannot know otherwise. In The Cannibal Owl, Gwyn does just this with discipline, empathy and palpable affection for his characters. Spending time in Levi’s world left me wanting more in the best possible way."

—John Vaillant, author of National Book Award & Pulitzer Finalist Fire Weather

"Gwyn's story thrums with life." —Publishers Weekly

Details:

• Publication date: January 28, 2025
  
• ISBN: 978-1-960215-30-7
  
• 80 pages
• 5 x 8 inches