Black Flies

Literature & Fiction

Burke, Shannon

Contemporary

Vintage

This breathtaking adventure set in the American West of the 1820s is at once a tale of complex friendships, a love story, and a panoramic retelling of a crucial moment in American history. When the young William Wyeth leaves St. Louis for a fur-trapping expedition, he nearly loses his life and quickly discovers the depth of loyalty among the men who must depend on one another to survive. While convalescing, he falls in love with proud Alene, a young widow who may or may not wait for him. And on a wildly risky expedition into Crow territory, Wyeth finds himself unwittingly at the center of a deadly boundary dispute among Native American tribes, the British government, and American trapping brigades. A classic adventure told with great suspense and literary flair, Into the Savage Country illuminates the ways in which extreme circumstances expose the truth about the natures of individual men and the surprising mechanics of their bravery, loyalty, and friendship.

Into the Savage Country: A Novel

United States

Pantheon

Safe Light

Piatkus Hb/Tpb

It’s the early nineteenth century, and the American West is still wild and untamed. Young William Wyeth is ready to throw caution to the wind and join a fur-trapping outfit, even though it means braving wild animals, sudden blizzards, and conflicts with hostile British trappers. Still, nothing can compare to the elation William feels when he meets and falls in love with Alene, a proud widow who insists she will not wait more than a year. As William sets off on one last mission with a group of grizzled eccentrics and an enigmatic, hotheaded leader, it soon becomes clear that making it back to Alene might require more skill than any one man possesses.

It’s 1990, and New York City is in shambles: unemployment reigns, crack wars rage, and whole neighborhoods burn as delinquent landlords cash in. Struggling to come to terms with his father’s death, paramedic and photographer Frank Verbeckas descends into the chaos and misery of upper Manhattan, taking photographs of the ill, the wounded, the dying, and the down-and-out. Accompanying him on his wanderings are his loudmouthed partner, Burnett; his best friend, Hock, who boosts drugs from the hospital; and his brother, Norman, a surgeon who can’t understand why Frank is in such pain. Frank’s ruin seems inevitable, but when he meets Emily, a professional fencer whose days are numbered by a fatal illness, his world changes. Against everyone’s advice, Frank and Emily fall in love. Together, they try to find a way out of the murk of guilt and sadness and learn to draw meaning and beauty from despair. In short, cinematic scenes, with not a word wasted and nothing told that can be shown, Shannon Burke leads us on a powerful journey through the darkest precincts of the street and of the soul. Honest, terse, and enormously moving, Safelight is a debut of remarkable depth, a stunning, clear-eyed, and sympathetic portrait of American life and death–a love story not for the faint of heart.

Safelight: A Novel

Dramas & Plays

Random House Trade Paperbacks

Random House]

From the acclaimed author of Black Flies and Into the Savage Country and co-creator of top-ten Netflix hit Outer Banks, a powerful new novel of class striving and the precarious dynamics of brotherhood in the Chicago suburbs of the late 1970s. "In our family, there was none of this crap about everyone being a winner," says Willie, the narrator, who looks back on his teen years--and his nearly mortal combat with his domineering older brother, Coyle. In the Brennan house four kids sleep in a single room, and are indoctrinated into "The Methods," a system of achievement and relentless striving, laced with a potent, sometimes violent version of sibling rivalry. The family is overseen by a raging bull of a father, a South Side tough guy who knocks them sideways when they don't perform well or follow his dictates. Rivals, enemies, and allies, the siblings contend with one another and their wealthy self-satisfied peers at New Trier, the famous upscale high school where the family has struggled to send them. Evoking their crucible of class struggle and peer pressures, Burke balances comedy, tragedy, and a fascinating cast of characters, delivering a book that reads like an instant classic--an unforgettable story of the intertwining of love and family violence, and of triumphant teen survival that echoes down through the years.

The Brother Years: A Novel

Literary

Novelist Shannon Burke earned stunning reviews for his debut book, Safelight, and now he returns with the same minimalist intensity in this arresting follow-up. Black Flies is the story of paramedic Ollie Cross and his first year on the job in mid-'90s New York. It is a ground's eye view of life on the streets: the shoot-outs, the bad cops, unhinged medics, the hopeless patients, the dark humor in bizarre circumstances, and one medic's struggle to balance his desire to help against his own growing callousness. It is the story of lives that hang in the balance, and of a single job with a misdiagnosed newborn that sends Cross and his partner into a life-changing struggle between good and evil.

Black Flies: A Novel

Soft Skull

A breathtaking adventure set in the American West of the 1820s that gives us a tale of complex friendships, a love story, and a panoramic retelling of a crucial moment in American history.

Into the Savage Country

Center Point

Moose Farts: The Moose Who Let Loose From His Caboose

Children's Books

Humor

Courage Kernel

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Books by Burke, Shannon