An “introspective, haunting tale that remains with us” (Heavy Feather Review) about a former revival preacher who walks away from an Eastern Kentucky prison in the 1970s, following a cat named Buffalo and trying to reconcile himself with his past.
After Frank escapes from a prison in Kentucky, his journey to find meaning in the absence of his former life as a charismatic traveling preacher leads him all up and down the US and Canada, delving into his own memories and questions of faith, family, self, and stories—and where those stories lead us.
Taking only a cat named Buffalo and a desire to outrun his former life, he journeys to the fringes of society. As he struggles to survive, Frank confronts his past, seeking redemption amidst the wilderness. As Frank traverses the shadowy edges of society, he encounters remnants of his former self, forcing him to confront his deepest regrets and desires. Blake’s haunting prose captures the essence of a man on the brink of transformation, urging readers to ponder the thin line between redemption and damnation.
BookLife Editor's Pick | Etchings Press Novella Prize winner | Next Generation Indie Book Award for First Novel Finalist | Feathered Quill Book Award for Debut Author Finalist | National indie Excellence Award for Book Cover Design Finalist | Featured on Deep South Magazine’s Reading List
“Blake’s atmospheric prose will pull readers into Frank’s resigned fatalism, and Pineville Trace serves as the incisive, elegiac odyssey of a confidence man who has lost his sense of spiritual direction.”
—Publishers Weekly BookLife
“A man escapes from prison only to find he can’t separate himself from his past. Wes Blake renders the tale with great empathy and in language that’s so lyrical it practically lifts from the page. Blake is a writer to watch.”
—Lee Martin, author of Pulitzer Prize Finalist The Bright Forever
“This was an utterly compelling read. Blake’s prose is sparse and simple, whose short, almost broken, sentences sing with enormous power.”
—A W Earl, SmokeLong Quarterly
“Blake’s writing provides a contemporary case-study on artful, effective minimalism. The effect is an introspective, haunting tale that remains with us.”
—Mia Carroll, Heavy Feather Review
“Despite his own certainty that he is a fraud, Frank emerges for the reader as the truest kind of prophet, following a cat named Buffalo and searching for “the old magic,” seeking an answer to that universal question: what ultimately releases a man from his own demons? A haunting debut!”
—Julie Hensley, author of Five Oaks
“Blake’s writing of place and the natural world is transportative. A slim, blues-tinged novel that made me feel, think, and remember.”
—Rebecca Fishow, author of How to Love a Black Hole
"The book is atmospheric and hypnotic and layered with meaning and ambiguity and complexity in the best possible sense, and I will remember for a long time.”
—Anthony Varallo, author of What Did You Do Today?
