1999. Ex-con June returns to Los Angeles to bury his father, and in the process brings violence and mayhem to everyone he encounters. Low-rent gangsters fight dogs and pistols shoot quiet through potato silencers, and at the center of this sweltering California Gothic and its surreal and colorful cast of characters is the love story of Kiddy and June, two wild young people separated by circumstance and time, trying not to love each other against their better instincts. “Christopher Rosales’ writing in Word is Bone is so vibrant and dirty with street-level intimacy like a lot of hip-hop: think Kendrick Lamar’s “Money Trees” and Domino’s “Getto Jam.” These are stories from the stoops, laundromats, canals and alleyways, that show how a community weaves narrative webs to understand their own truths. So, here we go, here we go as the tune starts to bloom.” —Steven Dunn, author of Potted Meat and water & power
About the Author: Christopher David Rosales
Christopher David Rosales' fiction has appeared in anthologies, journals, and magazines in the U.S. and abroad. His novel, 'Silence the Bird, Silence the Keeper' (Mixer Publishing, 2015), a literary political thriller, and won the McNamara Creative Arts Grant. His second novel, 'Gods on the Lam' (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, 2017) is a sci-fi detective thriller. His third novel, a crime thriller set in 1990's L.A., 'Word is Bone', is out now from Broken River Books. In 2013 Rosales was the Writing Fellow at The National Archives at Philadelphia. Previously he won the Center of the American West's award for fiction three years in a row. He has a PhD from The University of Denver, and is an Assistant Professor at The Jack Kerouac School at Naropa University. Follow him on Twitter @CDRosales Website and Contact: www.christopherrosales.com
QUOTES: “Christopher Rosales’ writing in Word is Bone is so vibrant and dirty with street-level intimacy like a lot of hip-hop: think Kendrick Lamar’s “Money Trees” and Domino’s “Getto Jam.” These are stories from the stoops, laundromats, canals and alleyways, that show how a community weaves narrative webs to understand their own truths. So, here we go, here we go as the tune starts to bloom.” —Steven Dunn, author of Potted Meat and water & power "If all stories are really either about someone leaving town or someone getting to town, then Word is Bone is, pretty much, all stories, but in a way that's so particular to southern California and the nineties that you'll find yourself looking down at your own feet, expecting them to be wrapped in June's cowboy boots." --Stephen Graham Jones, Mapping the Interior and Mongrels // REVIEWS: Word is Bone by Christopher David Rosales The novel Word is Bone by Christopher David Rosales portrays the hardboiled neighborhood of Clearwater, California. Here, everyone is involved in crime out of necessity—whether it comes from a loyal daughter sabotaging her mother’s competing sex worker upstairs, the welterweight pimp who defends his neighborhood, or the elderly woman who slanders a potential gangbanger because she thinks he’s trying to seduce a young girl, and she’s been listening to too many crime shows. You’ll love this book if you’re ready to hear the “tragic vision” from a new perspective. --Mary Kay McBrayer, "Book Riot"
