A boy, his dog and a monstrous friend.
First Runner-Up for General Fiction in the San Francisco Book Festival!
For fans of Jones's Indian Lake Trilogy, LaValle's Choo's The Foxwife, Ellison's A Boy and His Dog, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and the 1100's folktale Ysengrimus -- this literary Western Gothic novel from debut author Dust Kunkel builds a new mythos for the 21st Century where descendants of the first giant-killer wield a magical axe that convenes gods and monsters alike.
16-year old Clayton Stonefly (retelling the story to his dog, Dammit) has no idea who he is -- his parents hid him in the Idaho wilderness and spoke in riddles about his past. When he is thrust on a journey to revenge his father's murder and name the monster that shadows his every move, he finds out much more than he ever wanted.
Clayton Stonefly, who lost his parents four years ago and is being raised by his Granma Lina, just wants to be brave like Dammit, his dog, and face the town bully, Big Jim. That, or read Shakespeare on the porch alone in the Idaho wilderness. But Clay has an unfortunate gift: he's haunted by monstrous dreams of his family's dead nemesis, Das Ungeheuer, and every time he tells a story, someone dies. That - and he just watched his friend, MK, suck the soul out of a man, leaving the man clawing at his chest. Who is MK anyway? Is Big Jim just a small town pastor, or something else? Something with insect eyes sacrificing boys to bring a greater evil? Clay learns that his parents kept many secrets from him - not the least being there's a family calling that involves monster-wrangling, and a family axe with a mind of its own that may or may not be trying to talk to him.
If you like Dark Fantasy and Magical Realism - if you love dogs and riddles, folktales and Shakespeare, coming of age stories and the rivers and mountains of the West - then you'll enjoy this Naturalist Western Gothic.
