We’re very proud to announce that Charles Dodd White’s novel A Shelter of Others is now available. Click here to buy and read more about the book.

We’ve stated in the artwork for this post that A Shelter of Others is an antipastoral novel if there ever were one, and while we’ll exclude some of the classics listed in our mission statement for the moment, we believe this statement to be entirely and absolutely correct. There are many terms that are born in the minds of grads students, birthed in theses and aborted sometime thereafter in the dregs of blogs and Twitter and offshoot critical circles (though it’s likely that almost none of these terms graduate to the highbrow vernacular in the same way that “meta” made its rounds seven or eight years back). Yet we continue to carry “antipastoralism” as a legitimate term for a legitimate thing: We have a need to categorize fiction that not only carries a strong sense of place, but includes in its air a responsibility to metaphysics, hermit philosophies, the very grasp at, for very much a lack of a better term, general vibration of a particular work of art when felt by one specific observer and one specific time.

“Antipastoral” as it is and will always be is one of those terms, and when it was first birthed while trying to somehow tie A.M. Homes to Cormac McCarthy, or when it was birthed to otherwise butcher, it was made with a certain hope. Like any child. The glimmer then—it rang in the stars back when there was time to see stars—was need for something to capture the essence of earth and couple it with death, with nature being renewed by fire, with hope for sex only when paired with absolution, and, ultimately, a greater understanding of violence and why things must go wrong and how we can smell it in the air.

A Shelter of Others is this in a very fine way.

As the author, Charles Dodd White has created a small world like any writer should but better than many you’ve come to know. You’ll probably see this novel somewhere else some day, having graduated to another tier. You’ll hear from Charles again, perhaps you’ll see him. Buy him a beer if you do, because he is an artist and he deserves it.

We’ll continue to post news about A Shelter of Others as its reviewed, discussed and heard of. Here is a list of events that the author has organized and will be attending:

Updates on Annual #2 and another exciting project are coming soon.