Heir to a tradition of expatriate literary novels that includes works by Ernest Hemingway and Lawrence Durrell, Kevin Odermans new novelGoing,released this month by the West Virginia University-based Vandalia Press, combines a love story and an intrigue in a narrative of surprising twists that illuminate the moral quandaries faced by the main characters.
Oderman teaches English and creative writing at WVU .
The novel opens in Granada, Spain, where a boy in a dress begs in the white alleys of the old town. A runaway and vulnerable, he turns for protection to an American painter, Madeleine James, who is living in the city, and to her new friend, the poet Cy Jacobs.
Although the two adults mean to help the boy, they unwittingly expose him to more peril in the form of two unscrupulous Americans dealing in black-market Andalusian antiquities. Soon, all the characters in the story have been scraped on the touchstone of hard realities and made to show their mettle, be it base or gold.
Goingtakes place over the course of a few weeks in the last spring of the 20th century. Cy, diagnosed with terminal cancer, has left Pittsburgh and come to Granada alone to die a dignified death on his own terms rather than the slow, diminishing death his doctors have offered. But in the shadow of his own going, Cy finds that the claims of the living compel his allegiances still.
Goingis a brilliant novela deft, contemplative thriller that probes five lives united by art, chance, and exile,says David James Duncan, author ofThe River WhyandThe Brothers K.
The storys great themes are the erotic, artistic integrity, and death. Its
genders are crossed or at war, its night streets and romances equally treacherous, its wit delightfully dark. Yet the engagements with art are profound, and the climaxa stunneris suffused with justice and light.
According to Patrick Conner, who directs the WVU Press, literary expat fiction (novels like Hemingways 1926 work,The Sun Also Risesas example), fell out of fashion in America in the last few decades.
But,says Conner,expat fiction is back . . . and its popular. Its defining a new breed of Americans abroad, in much the same way as Henry James, Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, and other American writers did for their own time.
Known for his literary essays, Odermans novel evokes Morocco and Moorish Spain with the same sense-stirring imagery that is a signature of his creative nonfiction.
Odermans collection of literary essays,How Things Fit Together,won the Katharine Nason Bakeless Prize for Nonfiction in 1999 and was published by the University Press of New England in 2000. He is also the author of a critical book on Ezra Pound published by Duke University Press.
Originally from Portland, Ore., Oderman is a graduate of Reed College, Portland State University, and the University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara.
He joined WVU 20 years ago and also taught at the University of Nebraska, Iowa State University, and twice as a Senior Fulbright Lecturer, first in Thessaloniki, Greece, and then Lahore, Pakistan.
Vandalia Press is the literary imprint of WVU Press, specializing in contemporary poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.
Begun in 2001, Vandalia publishes one or two literary titles each year by regional writers or by other authors whose work has a strong connection to Appalachia or West Virginia.
Among Vandalias authors are Richard Currey, Lee Maynard, and West Virginia Poet Laureate Irene McKinney. Vandalia books can be ordered through the WVU Press atwww.wvupress.comor by calling toll-free 1-866-WVUPRESS. Books by Vandalia Press are also available nationwide through your favorite bookseller.