![Responsive image](https://rd-space-de.fra1.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/prod/develop/mohrbooks/2023/10/45059-thumbnail.jpg)
Vendor | |
---|---|
![]() |
Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
Categories | |
THE CAPTIVE CONDITION
A seemingly idyllic Midwestern college town turns out to be a nexus of horror in this spellbinding novel—emotionally and psychologically complex, at once chilling and deliciously dark—from a thrilling new voice in fiction.
When Emily Ryan is found drowned in the family pool, pumped full of barbiturates and alcohol, a series of events with cataclysmic consequences ensues. Emily's lover, a college professor, finds himself responsible for her twin daughters, whose piercing stares fill him with the guilt and anguish he so desperately tries to hide from his wife. A low-level criminal named The Gonk takes over the cottage of a reclusive elderly artist, complete with graveyard and moonshine still, and devises plans for both. His young apprentice, haunted by inner demons, seeks retribution for the professor's wicked deeds. The town itself, buzzing into decadent life after sundown, traps its inhabitants in patterns of inexplicable behavior all the while drawing them toward a night in which the horror will reach its disturbing and inevitable conclusion.
Delving into the deepest recesses of the human capacity for evil, Kevin P. Keating's masterful novel will captivate readers from first to last.
After working as a boilermaker in the steel mills in Ohio, Kevin P. Keating became a professor of English and began teaching at Baldwin Wallace University, Cleveland State University, Lorain County Community College, and Lakeland Community College. His essays and stories have appeared in over fifty literary journals, including The Blue Lake Review, The Fifth Street Review, The Mad Hatter's Review, The Avatar Review, The North Coast Review, The Licking River Review, The Red Rock Review, Whiskey Island, Juked, Inertia, Identity Theory, Exquisite Corpse, Wordriver, and many others. His first novel, The Natural Order of Things, published by Vintage as a paperback original, was widely praised, received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for first fiction. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio.
Available products |
---|
Book
Published 2015-07-07 by Vintage/Pantheon |