National Network for Equitable Library Service

ALA Notable Book; Mississippi Arts and Letters Fiction Award. Lewis Nordan's remarkable third novel, The Sharpshooter Blues, is in part a meditation on America's love affair with blue-steel barrels and soft-tip bullets, and in part a look at the violence and loss that ensue when the guns come out to play one day in a small town. Just as his award-winning Wolf Whistle illuminated the complexity of racism, Nordan's new novel shines the brilliant flash of gunfire on love-between fathers and sons, between husbands and wives, between gay lovers, and between friends. At its heart is Hydro Raney, a boy who's never grown up, a boy who wouldn't hurt a soul. In The Sharpshooter Blues, Nordan once again makes us laugh; then our helpless laughter turns first into weeping and then into wonder. "A comedy at least half as divine-and dark-as Dante's own... a flat-out tour de force." -Lee K. Abbott, Miami Herald; "This is not just a good book, this is a marvelous book." -The Village Voice.