Wounded

“Starts rhapsodically and rewards the reader with so many moments of love and laughter—Wounded is full of shocks and surprises.” —Los Angeles Times

“While it’s tempting to compare Wounded to something by Cormac McCarthy or Walter Van Tilburg Clark, in which a brutal landscape makes for brutal men, this book is more about men who resist such pressures with all the humanity they can muster.” —Time Out Chicago, Top 10 Book of 2005

Training horses is dangerous—a head-to-head confrontation with 1,000 pounds of muscle and little sense takes courage, but more importantly patience and smarts. It is these same qualities that allow John and his uncle Gus to live in the beautiful high desert of Wyoming. A black horse trainer is a curiosity, at the very least, but a familiar curiosity in these parts. It is the brutal murder of a young gay man however, that pushes this small community to the teetering edge of intolerance.

As the first blizzard of the season gains momentum, John is forced to reckon not only with the daily burden of unruly horses, a three-legged coyote pup, an escape-artist mule, and too many people, but also with a father-son war over homosexuality, random hate crimes, and—perhaps most frightening of all—a chance for love.

Highly praised for his storytelling and ability to address the toughest issues of our time with humor, grace, and originality, Everett offers a brilliant novel that explores the alarming consequences of hatred in a divided America.