Spirit Walk

Brimming with bordertown corruption and blame-ridden recollections, this powerful literary debut opens at a turning point for college professor Kevin McNally, whose personal and professional lives have run aground, haunted by a violent border clash from his youth. Now, McNally must journey back to southeast Arizona's chaparral country to face the loss and trauma of his past. "Treiber sets a rapid thrilling pace..."

--THE UTAH REVIEW "A thrilling and elegantly wrought debut about the far-reaching effects of our decisions, and our irrepressible desire to undo the worst of them. Treiber is a writer of enormous talents, and Spirit Walk will leave you breathless until the final page."

--JONATHAN EVISON, author of The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving "At once gritty and lyrical, Spirit Walk is a haunting tale of the modern American West. Out of the explosive violence, hard living, and stark beauty of the Arizona borderlands, Jay Treiber has woven a gripping story of remembrance and redemption, beautifully painting the place and giving voice to its people. I can't stop thinking about it."

--JENNIFER CARRELL, author of Haunt Me Still and Interred with Their Bones "The borderland setting of Spirit Walk only appears empty. This landscape is inhabited by commingled cultures, criss-crossed jurisdictions and colliding values--where a rancher wouldn't leave a bottle cap, traffickers litter bodies. Depicting an episode of violence as confounding in memory as the day it erupted, Jay Treiber shows the corrosive costs of the drug trade--and of burying the past. In the vein of Philip Caputo's Crossers."

--CHARLIE QUIMBY, author of Monument Road "There's a wonderful sense of authenticity and place here...Jay Treiber has given us a rich, well-written, multi-layered book to satisfy wide reading appetites."

--ROBERT HOUSTON, author of Bisbee 17