Fourth of July Creek

This book left me awestruck; a stunning debut which reads like the work of a writer at the height of his power. Begins with the story of one struggling man and his family and soon seems to encompass and address all of modern America’s problems. Fourth of July Creek is a masterful achievement and Smith Henderson is certain to end up a household name. – Philipp Meyer, New York Times bestselling author of The SonAn impressive book – deeply so. [Cormac] McCarthy’s shadow may loom heavy across the prose, but the story this prose conveys, and the manner in which Henderson unfurls it, bears its own unalloyed power … It’s Pearl’s story, more than anything else, that lock this novel in your hands … [A] trenchant and vigorously empathetic novel. * New York Times Book Review *An intense, mesmerising book that uses this surprisingly intimate relationship to explore grand themes about American culture … Devastating and inspiring. * The Economist *Stunning debut novel … that crackles and lurches with the intensity of a Tom Waits song. Here, at the beginning of his career, Henderson has come within shouting distance of writing a great American novel. * Guardian *It’s hard to believe that this is a first novel. Confidence verging on swagger leaks out of every page. It is a big fat all-American epic that has earned its place on airport bookshelves for many months to come…Think Cold Mountain but with more action…The conclusion has all the surprise of a great detective story. Henderson has created an instant classic. * Daily Mail *There is a lot to praise here: striking descriptions of the mountain landscape, imaginative imagery and, above all, the irresistible energy of so much American fiction. * The Times *Fourth of July Creek knocked me flat. This gorgeous, full-bodied novel seems to contain all of America at what was, in retrospect, a pivotal moment in its history. In the story of Pete Snow’s struggle to save families, children, lives – his own and others’ – Smith Henderson has delivered nothing less than a masterpiece of a novel. – Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Halftime WalkSmith Henderson’s Fourth of July Creek is an astonishing read. The writing is energetic and precise. The story is enthralling. Henderson has a mastery of scale that allows this particular place and these particular people to illuminate who we are as Americans, and the consequences of the complex project that has become our nation. I could not recommend this book more highly. – Kevin Powers, bestselling author of The Yellow BirdsFourth of July Creek cannot possibly be Smith Henderson’s first book. Its scope is audacious, its range virtuosic, its gaze steady and true. A riveting story written in an seductive and relentlessly authentic rural American vernacular, this is the kind of novel I wish I’d written. – Claire Vaye Watkins, author of BattlebornEngrossing … A piercing glance at the US’s social margins where the American dream and the horrors of government abandonment walk hand in hand. * Metro *

Smith Henderson is the recipient of the 2011 PEN Emerging Writer Winner (in fiction). He was a 2011 Philip Roth Resident in Creative Writing at Bucknell University, a 2011 Pushcart Prize winner and a Michener Center for Writers Fellow. Henderson’s short story manuscript was a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Award and he was a two-time finalist for the University of Texas Keene Prize, the world’s largest student literary prize. His fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction, One Story, New Orleans Review, Makeout Creek, and Witness. He has worked as a prison guard and social worker, experiences which informed his first novel Fourth of July Creek, set in his native Montana.

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