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A Novel
by Josh Ritter
From singer-songwriter Josh Ritter, a lyrical, sweeping novel about a young boy's coming-of-age during the last days of the lumberjacks.
In the tiny timber town of Cordelia, Idaho, ninety-nine year old Weldon Applegate recounts his life in all its glory, filled with tall tales writ large with murder, mayhem, avalanches and bootlegging. It's the story of dark pine forests brewing with ancient magic, and Weldon's struggle as a boy to keep his father's inherited timber claim, the Lost Lot, from the ravenous clutches of Linden Laughlin.
Ever since young Weldon stepped foot in the deep Cordelia woods as a child, he dreamed of joining the rowdy ranks of his ancestors in their epic axe-swinging adventures. Local legend says their family line boasts some of the greatest lumberjacks to ever roam the American West, but at the beginning of the twentieth century, the jacks are dying out, and it's up to Weldon to defend his family legacy.
Braided with haunting saloon tunes and just the right dose of magic, The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All is a novel bursting with heart, humor and an utterly transporting adventure that is sure to sweep you away into the beauty of the tall snowy mountain timber.
"A story at once heart-wrenching, lifeaffirming, and tear-inducing that still somehow offers the most loathsome villain this side of Cormac McCarthy. Ritter, widely regarded as one of our greatest songwriters, brings that same knack for lyrical precision to his memorable yet completely natural fiction. Depth and humor are woven into richly textured sentences and evocative turns of phrase that seem to announce a new world between each word. There is wisdom on these pages." -Booklist (starred review)
"Following his debut, Bright's Passage, singer-songwriter Ritter displays his storytelling gifts in a rollicking narrative featuring tall tales, outrageous characters, and hair-raising adventure in the waning days of Idaho lumberjacks. A deeply genuine must-read story." – Library Journal (starred review)
"Sweeping and magic-filled… Ritter lyrically evokes a town fused to the logging industry by necessity and devotion through Weldon's anecdotal narration, which resonates with a shimmery, deep-seated humanity. Ritter scores another hit." – Publishers Weekly
"Ritter's follow-up to Bright's Passage (2011) is a scenic, phrase-spinning account that delights in detailing the perilous life of a lumberjack… like the song without an ending that one character after another can't get out of their head, the novel has its own infectious quality." – Kirkus Reviews
"I loved this mythic American story. My heart overflowed with affection and raced with terror for Weldon Applegate! Josh Ritter's lyrical imagination frolics unfettered on page after fast-turning page." - Anaïs Mitchell, creator of Working on a Song: The Lyrics of Hadestown
This information about The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Josh Ritter is a songwriter from Moscow, Idaho. His albums include The Animal Years and So Runs the World Away. Bright's Passage was his first novel. He lives in New York.
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