This Rock A Novel

Jessica Ronky Haddad Style Weekly Transports readers directly to the wild and forgotten mountains of North Carolina and to the secret, hopeful places in a young man¹s heart. From the author of Gap Creek the international bestseller and winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award for fiction comes the gripping story of two brothers struggling against each other and the confines of their 1920s Appalachian Mountain world. Muir and Moody Powell are as different as Jacob and Esau. Muir is an innocent, shy young man with big dreams and not the slightest idea of what to do about them. Moody, the older, wilder brother, takes to moonshine and gambling and turns his anger on his brother. Through it all, their mother, Ginny, tries to steer them right, while dealing with her own losses: her husband, her youth, and the fiery sense of God that had once ordered her world. When Muir discovers his purpose in life, the consequences are far-reaching and irrevocable: a community threatens to tear itself apart and his family is forever changed. This Rock is the most ambitious and accomplished novel yet from an author whose sentences ³at their finest . . . burn with the raw, lonesome pathos of Hank Williams¹s best songs² (The New York Times Book Review). ³Homespun pleasure.² Nelson Taylor, Providence Journal ³Hell-bent and excellent . . . I can¹t shake the first scene. . . . resonant . . . moving.² Katherine Whittemore, The New York Times Book Review ³Morgan¹s prose is sharp and saturated with details . . . [imbued] . . . with a sort of lyrical sheen . . . both moving and spiritual.² Michael Paulson, Bookpage Robert Morgan, the author of the award-winning novel Gap Creek, is a native of the North Carolina mountains, where he was raised on land settled by his Welsh ancestors.