The book is set at the University of Florida in 1958, when the state legislature was purging suspected Marxists and gays from the state university system. Watson uses these actual facts to weave a story that speaks to the purges going on in Florida today. His ambitious professor, Tom Stall, wants to rise in his department, but there's a huge price he must pay. As usual, Watson keeps the story moving briskly and sets up an exciting ending. His characters are strong and believeable. He went to school in Gainesville, and later ran the writing program at Eckerd College, so knows the terrain.
Professor Tom Stall’s career and life are threatened when a nefarious government-affiliated group of men begin investigating the private acts of innocent people in late 1950s Florida.
The 2021 Southern Literary Review Book of the Year
“A captivating read and an absorbing tale about the abuses that can arise from intolerance and prejudice. It carries a warning from the past to the siloed, fractured communities of today.” ―Historical Novel Society
In the late 1950s, Gainesville, Florida, seems to be a sleepy university town. Its residents live, by outward appearances, ordinary lives. And yet the town is far from ordinary. The…
A writer living in Tallahassee, Florida, Mustain has created a work that deserves to be considered alongside the best Southern fiction. His protagonist, Johnny, was born with tiny flaps on his back that eventually grow into actual wings. His small town neighbors call him the devil. He becomes an outcast and spends time in a traveling freak show. His journey eventually ends in the halls of power in Tallahassee, the state capitol.
Mustain beautifully renders Johnny's world. I particularly loved the depiction of the traveling carnival show. His writing is literary but his plotting is determined and well-paced. It pushes the story forward.
Wascom builds a fable that feels real and current, and has the violent, madcap drive of the best pulp fiction. His Florida is full of prophets, gunslingers, mega-warriors, and fundamentalist religion. And I found myself identifying with Rally, the 13-year-old, at the center of the action.
Wascom's West Florida tale makes me feel like I stepped into one of George Miller's Mad Max movies. That is a compliment.
I won't say more. You need to experience this book on your own.
From the beloved author previously compared to Cormac McCarthy and Joyce Carol Oates (Washington Post), a startling and unconventional neon-pink Western of vengeance, family, and first love as two warring factions vie for control of a blood-soaked Gulf Coast
It's 2026, and Rally is thirteen years old. The long, hot Louisiana summer looms before him like a face-melting stretch of blacktop, and the country is talking civil war while his adoptive family acts more vicious than ever. Rally spends his days wondering about his dead father's people, the Woolsacks of West Florida, who long ago led a failed rebellion to…
It’s 1985 and Ronald Armstrong, known in the magic mushroom trade as “Trip,” takes a “sober” job as a driver for a retired Tampa mobster. His boss, Charlie Wall, has survived four attempts on his life, the last one in 1955. When Charlie falls into depression, Trip rebuilds his boss’ self-esteem by convincing him people still want him dead. What neither of them know is that an aging hit man has decided to finish the job he botched 30 years earlier.
The Everlasting Life of Charlie Wall is based on a real-life Tampa mobster and includes Charlie’s first-person account of his life of crime and the loss of the woman he loves. Three strong and determined women, Katrina Carey, Ava Corral and Angie Castellano, play key roles in this story. Everlasting Life is both a love story and a mafia adventure, brimming with humor and heart.
