Image 1 of 1
PRAISE FOR Bloomland
“Englehardt has been blessed with an unflinching, insightful gaze and a powerful ability to create unusual characters in organic conflicts.” –Book and Film Globe
“Englehardt has crafted a narrative that encourages exploration over explanation, which values understanding over sensationalism, and holds most dear, compassion over judgment.” –Blackbird Journal
“Brilliant and insanely brave…Englehardt has just announced himself as one of America’s most talented emerging writers.” –Kirkus Reviews
“Bloomland juxtaposes the proximate with the predator, intermingling their perspectives until the flickering becomes a bloody tapestry of our beleaguered nation.” –The Washington Post
“A grim depiction of gun culture in the Bible Belt from a poignant and humanist perspective.” –World Literature Today
“A radioactive Faulkner.” –The Seattle Review of Books
“Bloomland is the sobering novel America needs right now” –Debutiful
“In high-quality, almost incantatory literary prose, Englehardt's narrator examines the lives of the killer, the victims, the bereaved, the town, and himself in an attempt to find honest answers to frustratingly routine questions: Why did this shooting happen? Who is responsible? And what happens next?” –The Stranger
“Considering that we’re bombarded daily with footage from ground zero of one act of mass violence after another, I ask, “Do we need a novel about it?” After finishing the last page of John Englehardt’s stark, yet heartbreakingly human novel, Bloomland, the answer is a confident, “Yes, we do.” –The Florida Review
“Englehardt’s debut poses timely, difficult questions.” –Publisher’s Weekly
“In prose that is vivid, specific, and wildly original, Englehardt shows how grief, disillusionment, and — in some cases — resilience can take lives in surprising directions. This is SO good.” —American Booksellers Association
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Englehardt is the author of the novel Bloomland, which won the Dzanc Prize for Fiction, the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and was named a book of the year by Kirkus Reviews and Electric Literature. He has previously taught writing classes at Seattle University, Hugo House, University of Arkansas, and was a visiting professor at Pacific Lutheran University. He lived in Seattle for many years and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.
