BOOK: All Saints by Jason Jack Miller
BOOKS
ALL SAINTS by JASON JACK MILLER
In some dark corners of Mexico, All Saints’ Day isn’t merely a time to remember the dead. It’s an invitation to commune.
When a woman cursed with immortality and a man haunted by a bloody war stumble headlong into this strange mélange of mysticism and cosmology, they learn that a return home may entail more than a voyage of mere miles. It will require them to traverse space and time.
A groundbreaking work as tenacious as a hurricane and as radiant as Van Gogh’s STARRY NIGHT, this contemporary myth amplifies the conventions of genre and literary fiction to take us on a journey in a way that only a book can, and reminds us that even in
darkness there is light.
WHAT THEY'RE SAYING ABOUT ALL SAINTS:
"The author of Hellbender is back with a new book that proves beyond a doubt that 'there's more than one way to chase the devil around a stump.' This genre-bending book reads like Gabriel Garcia Marquez getting in a bayonet fight on the battlefield. The plot explodes with action and fabulism. The dialogue stuns with its craftiness and then settles in with a deep afterburn. All the words zing like handmade bullets. And amidst all the fireworks of his imagination, the book just bleeds with so much heart you want to keep turning the pages. All Saints speaks to those among us whose candles are sputtering and beaten down to the wick by the winds of life, but still defiantly flaming on with the will of a wildfire, eager to dream, live and love. The novel stands on its own, but this addition to the Murder Ballads series is a gift to fans of the series, because Jason Jack Miller is an artisan crafting fiction at the top of his game."
-- Michael Arnzen, five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Play Dead
"What I love about Jason Jack Miller’s fiction is the way he pulls me deep into his characters’ milieus and doesn’t let me out again--not that I want out--until long after the final page. His Murder Ballads and Whiskey series made me see my beloved/hated Appalachian landscape with clearer vision, beyond the littered streets of dying towns and into the magic, where screaming guitar riffs and dangerous love compete with evil for dominance over everybody’s soul. His new novel, All Saints, has evil still in fevered pursuit, but this time his hero--Ben, a war vet suffering from PTSD--is assisted (i.e. restrained from destroying himself) by three native boys, a yellow dog, and a beautiful, eternally young woman while they carom through Central American jungles and villages in search of the magic that can save them all. The writing is so rich that you will smell the jungle or feel the sand between your toes as you read; the characters are authentic and believable, and the mysticism will beguile. Miller writes with authority, but don’t expect to be in safe hands. He will take you where you might not wish to go--but will be glad you did."
-- Randall Silvis, Fulbright Award-winning author of The Boy Who Shoots Crows
"Action sequences and mystical elements are skillfully written."
-- Publisher's Weekly
Jason Jack Miller knows it’s silly to hold onto the Bohemian ideals of literature, music, and love above all else. But he doesn’t care.
As a record store clerk at a time when record stores mattered, as a whitewater raft guide on some of Appalachia’s wildest rivers, and as a concierge in one of Florida’s finest hotels—he has always sought every opportunity to be involved with and affected by the world around him. He chases experiences and then transforms them into stories
Some of these stories can be found in his Murder Ballads and Whiskey series. The first three books are currently available: The Devil and Preston Black, Hellbender, and The Revelations of Preston Black. Hellbender was Jason's thesis novel for Seton Hill University's Writing Popular Fiction Graduate Program. The novel won the Arthur J. Rooney Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the Appalachian Writers Association Book of the Year Award.
The next installment, All Saints, came out February 2018.
His career got its start when he co-authored an outdoor travel guide with his wife in 2006. Since then his work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, literary journals, online, as part of a travel guide app for mobile phones, and in the award-winning writing guide Many Genres, One Craft.
He is a high school science teacher, and is now an instructor and mentor in Seton Hill University’s prestigious Writing Popular Fiction MFA program. He lives just outside of Pittsburgh with his wife and Small Space Big Life co-creator, Heidi, and a cat named Francesca. Find him at www.jasonjackmiller.com, on YouTube as Jason Jason Miller or Small Space Big Life, and on Twitter and Instagram @jasonjackmiller.
In some dark corners of Mexico, All Saints’ Day isn’t merely a time to remember the dead. It’s an invitation to commune.
When a woman cursed with immortality and a man haunted by a bloody war stumble headlong into this strange mélange of mysticism and cosmology, they learn that a return home may entail more than a voyage of mere miles. It will require them to traverse space and time.
A groundbreaking work as tenacious as a hurricane and as radiant as Van Gogh’s STARRY NIGHT, this contemporary myth amplifies the conventions of genre and literary fiction to take us on a journey in a way that only a book can, and reminds us that even in
darkness there is light.
"The author of Hellbender is back with a new book that proves beyond a doubt that 'there's more than one way to chase the devil around a stump.' This genre-bending book reads like Gabriel Garcia Marquez getting in a bayonet fight on the battlefield. The plot explodes with action and fabulism. The dialogue stuns with its craftiness and then settles in with a deep afterburn. All the words zing like handmade bullets. And amidst all the fireworks of his imagination, the book just bleeds with so much heart you want to keep turning the pages. All Saints speaks to those among us whose candles are sputtering and beaten down to the wick by the winds of life, but still defiantly flaming on with the will of a wildfire, eager to dream, live and love. The novel stands on its own, but this addition to the Murder Ballads series is a gift to fans of the series, because Jason Jack Miller is an artisan crafting fiction at the top of his game."
-- Michael Arnzen, five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Play Dead
"What I love about Jason Jack Miller’s fiction is the way he pulls me deep into his characters’ milieus and doesn’t let me out again--not that I want out--until long after the final page. His Murder Ballads and Whiskey series made me see my beloved/hated Appalachian landscape with clearer vision, beyond the littered streets of dying towns and into the magic, where screaming guitar riffs and dangerous love compete with evil for dominance over everybody’s soul. His new novel, All Saints, has evil still in fevered pursuit, but this time his hero--Ben, a war vet suffering from PTSD--is assisted (i.e. restrained from destroying himself) by three native boys, a yellow dog, and a beautiful, eternally young woman while they carom through Central American jungles and villages in search of the magic that can save them all. The writing is so rich that you will smell the jungle or feel the sand between your toes as you read; the characters are authentic and believable, and the mysticism will beguile. Miller writes with authority, but don’t expect to be in safe hands. He will take you where you might not wish to go--but will be glad you did."
-- Randall Silvis, Fulbright Award-winning author of The Boy Who Shoots Crows
"Action sequences and mystical elements are skillfully written."
-- Publisher's Weekly
As a record store clerk at a time when record stores mattered, as a whitewater raft guide on some of Appalachia’s wildest rivers, and as a concierge in one of Florida’s finest hotels—he has always sought every opportunity to be involved with and affected by the world around him. He chases experiences and then transforms them into stories
Some of these stories can be found in his Murder Ballads and Whiskey series. The first three books are currently available: The Devil and Preston Black, Hellbender, and The Revelations of Preston Black. Hellbender was Jason's thesis novel for Seton Hill University's Writing Popular Fiction Graduate Program. The novel won the Arthur J. Rooney Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the Appalachian Writers Association Book of the Year Award.
The next installment, All Saints, came out February 2018.
His career got its start when he co-authored an outdoor travel guide with his wife in 2006. Since then his work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, literary journals, online, as part of a travel guide app for mobile phones, and in the award-winning writing guide Many Genres, One Craft.
He is a high school science teacher, and is now an instructor and mentor in Seton Hill University’s prestigious Writing Popular Fiction MFA program. He lives just outside of Pittsburgh with his wife and Small Space Big Life co-creator, Heidi, and a cat named Francesca. Find him at www.jasonjackmiller.com, on YouTube as Jason Jason Miller or Small Space Big Life, and on Twitter and Instagram @jasonjackmiller.
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