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Published Mar 2019
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
In this moving new novel from celebrated author Nickolas Butler, a Wisconsin family grapples with the power and limitations of faith when one of their own falls under the influence of a radical church.
Lyle Hovde is at the onset of his golden years, living a mostly content life in rural Wisconsin with his wife, Peg, daughter, Shiloh, and six-year old grandson, Isaac. After a troubled adolescence and subsequent estrangement from her parents, Shiloh has finally come home. But while Lyle is thrilled to have his whole family reunited, he's also uneasy: in Shiloh's absence, she has become deeply involved with an extremist church, and the devout pastor courting her is convinced Isaac has the spiritual ability to heal the sick.
While reckoning with his own faith - or lack thereof - Lyle soon finds himself torn between his unease about the church and his desire to keep his daughter and grandson in his life. But when the church's radical belief system threatens Isaac's safety, Lyle is forced to make a decision from which the family may not recover.
Set over the course of one year and beautifully evoking the change of seasons, Little Faith is a powerful and deeply affecting inter-generational novel about family and community, the ways in which belief is both formed and shaken, and the lengths we go to protect our own.
"Starred Review. Breathtaking yet devastating...Butler weaves questions surrounding faith, regret, and whether it's possible to love unconditionally into every page of this potent book...This is storytelling at its finest." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Powerful... [Butler] skillfully handles the complicated - and heartbreaking - psychological and emotional complexities of this story, crafting a deeply moving novel about love, faith, and loss...A beautifully realized meditation on the nature of parenting and living in a perplexing (and often cruel) world." - Library Journal
"Exploring the complexities of faith and family, Butler... also tackles the power and pitfalls of devout Christianity. Fans of Richard Russo and Jan Karon will appreciate Butler's sense of place, which lets seasonal shifts and harvest cycles propel the novel forward. Little Faith is quietly and deeply moving." - Booklist
"The novelist loves this land and these characters, with their enduring values amid a way of life that seems to be dying." - Kirkus
"A novel as tender and generous as any I've read. It's a three a.m. I gotta get some sleep but can't stop reading sorta book. Heart stoppingly good." - Willy Vlautin, author of Lean on Pete and Don't Skip Out on Me
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: OliveJuiceStudios.com
Nickolas Butler was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and educated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. He is the author of the internationally-best selling novel Shotgun Lovesongs, a collection of short stories entitled, Beneath the Bonfire, and The Hearts of Men which has already been longlisted for two of France's top literary awards. He is the winner of France's prestigious PAGE Prix America, the 2014 Great Lakes Great Reads Award, the 2014 Midwest Independent Booksellers Award, the 2015 Wisconsin Library Association Literary Award, the 2015 UW-Whitewater Chancellor's Regional Literary Award, and has been long-listed for the 2014 Flaherty Dunnan Award for ...
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