SELECT PRAISE FORNorman Lock’s American Novels Series
On The Boy in His Winter
“Brilliant…. The Boy in His Winter is a glorious meditation on justice, truth, loyalty, story, and the alchemical effects of love, a reminder of our capacity to be changed by the continuously evolving world ‘when it strikes fire against the mind’s flint,’ and by profoundly moving novels like this.” —NPR
“[Lock] is one of the most interesting writers out there. This time, he re-imagines Huck Finn’s journeys, transporting the iconic character deep into America’s past—and future.” —Reader’s Digest
“To call [The Boy in His Winter] a work of fiction is to tell only part of the story. This book is as much a treatise on memory and time and the nature of storytelling and our collective national conscience…. Much of it wildly funny and extremely intelligent.” —Star Tribune
On American Meteor
“Sheds brilliant light along the meteoric path of American westward expansion…. [A] pithy, compact beautifully conducted version of the American Dream, from its portrait of the young wounded soldier in the beginning to its powerful rendering of Crazy Horse’s prophecy for life on earth at the end.” —NPR
“[Walt Whitman] hovers over [American Meteor], just as Mark Twain’s spirit pervaded The Boy in His Winter…. Like all Mr. Lock’s books, this is an ambitious work, where ideas crowd together on the page like desperate men on a battlefield.” —Wall Street Journal
“American Meteor is, at its core, a spiritual treatise that forces its readers to examine their own role in history’s unceasing march forward [and] casts new and lyrical light on our nation’s violent past.” —Shelf Awareness for Readers (starred review)
On The Port-Wine Stain
“Lock’s novel engages not merely with [Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas Dent Mütter] but with decadent fin de siècle art and modernist literature that raised philosophical and moral questions about the metaphysical relations among art, science and human consciousness. The reader is just as spellbound by Lock’s story as [his novel’s narrator] is by Poe’s…. Echoes of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Freud’s theory of the uncanny abound in this mesmerizingly twisted, richly layered homage to a pioneer of American Gothic fiction.” —New York Times Book Review
“As polished as its predecessors, The Boy in His Winter and American Meteor…. An enthralling and believable picture of the descent into madness, told in chillingly beautiful prose that Poe might envy.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“This chilling and layered story of obsession succeeds both as a moody period piece and as an effective and memorable homage to the works of Edgar Allan Poe.” —Kirkus Reviews
On A Fugitive in Walden Woods
“A Fugitive in Walden Woods manages that special magic of making Thoreau’s time in Walden Woods seem fresh and surprising and necessary right now…. This is a patient and perceptive novel, a pleasure to read even as it grapples with issues that affect the United States to this day.” —Victor LaValle, author of The Ballad of Black Tom and The Changeling
“Bold and enlightening…. An important novel that creates a vivid social context for the masterpieces of such writers as Thoreau, Emerson, and Hawthorne and also offers valuable insights about our current conscious and unconscious racism.” —Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab’s Wife and The Fountain of St. James Court; or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman
“Bursts with intellectual energy, with moral urgency, and with human feeling…. Achieves the alchemy of good fiction through which philosophy takes on all the flaws and ennoblements of real, embodied life.” —Millions
On The Wreckage of Eden
“Perceptive and contemplative…. Bring[s] the 1840–60s to life with shimmering prose.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“The lively passages of Emily’s letters are so evocative of her poetry that it becomes easy to see why Robert finds her so captivating. The book also expands and deepens themes of moral hypocrisy around racism and slavery…. Lyrically written but unafraid of the ugliness of the time, Lock’s thought-provoking series continues to impress.” —Publishers Weekly
“[A] consistently excellent series…. Lock has an impressive ear for the musicality of language, and his characteristic lush prose brings vitality and poetic authenticity to the dialogue.” —Booklist
On Feast Day of the Cannibals
“Lock does not merely imitate 19th-century prose; he makes it his own, with verbal flourishes worthy of Melville.” —Gay & Lesbian Review
“This spectacular work will delight and awe readers with Lock’s magisterial wordsmithing.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Transfixing…. This historically authentic novel raises potent questions about sexuality during an unsettling era in American history past and is another impressive entry in Lock’s dissection of America’s past.”
—Publishers Weekly
AMERICAN FOLLIES
Other Books in the American Novels Series
Feast Day of the Cannibals
The Wreckage of Eden
A Fugitive in Walden Woods
The Port-Wine Stain
American Meteor
The Boy in His Winter
Also by Norman Lock
Love Among the Particles (stories)
AMERICAN FOLLIES
Norman Lock
First published in the United States in 2020 by
Bellevue Literary Press, New York
For information, contact:
Bellevue Literary Press
90 Broad Street
Suite 2100
New York, NY 10004
© 2020 by Norman Lock
This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, events, and places (even those that are actual) are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lock, Norman, 1950– author.
Title: American follies / Norman Lock.
Description: First edition. | New York : Bellevue Literary Press, 2020. | Series: The American novels
Identifiers: LCCN 2019030396 (print) | LCCN 2019030397 (ebook) | ISBN 9781942658481 (paperback) | ISBN 9781942658498 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: United States—Social life and customs—19th