Beneath The Bonfire is a collection of ten short stories, all set in small town America. Each story shows one thing absolutely: the talent of Nickolas Butler. He is a voice of America and a master of human emotion. He may well become one of the great American writers, if he is not there already. I found it hard to put this book down, the stories drew me in and stayed in my mind. Some were happy and others sad, but all came with a slice of Americana and characters it is hard to forget. It is hard to pick a favourite so I won’t, but I will pass this book along to a friend, such is its power to entrance.

Nickolas Butler’s debut novel, Shotgun Lovesongs, has become an international bestseller and won numerous accolades, including France’s Prix Page/America, previously won by Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding. Now, in Beneath the Bonfire, he demonstrates his talent for portraying “a place and its people with such love that you’ll find yourself falling for them, too” (Josh Weil, author of The Great Glass Sea).

Young couples gather to participate in an annual “chainsaw party,” cutting down trees for firewood in anticipation of the winter. A group of men spend a weekend hunting for mushrooms in the wilderness where they grew up and where some still find themselves trapped. An aging environmentalist takes out his frustration and anger on a singular, unsuspecting target. One woman helps another get revenge against a man whose crime extends far beyond him to an entire community. Together, the ten stories in this dazzling, surprising collection evoke a landscape that will be instantly recognisable to anyone who has traveled the back roads and blue highways of America, and they completely capture the memorable characters who call it home.

Beneath the Bonfire is available here.