boneyard is available now ...
"Stephen Beachy is a complete visionary, a sorceror, a secret weapon. boneyard does for the Amish disapora what Junot Diaz did for Dominicans with The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao."
Scott Heim
Huffington Post calls it one of 11 Fall Books You Need to Know About
boneyard is my collaboration with Jake Yoder, a precocious and rather disturbed Amish boy. Jake's stories feature children who are crushed, imprisoned, and distorted, yet somehow flailing around with a kind of bedazzled awe, trying to find a way out. The strange logic and disturbing shifts in Jake's tales reveal a boy processing intense emotional experiences in the wake of his mother's suicide and his own proximity to the schoolroom shootings at Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, in 2006. Jake imagines fantastic journeys, magical transformations and rock stardom, it seems, as alternatives to the limitations of his life among the Amish. Jake's work is framed with commentary from myself and editor Judith Owsley Brown, in which we offer our very different views on Amish culture, literary context, political strategy in the face of endless imperial wars, the use of psychoactive medications for children, my own mental health, and the reality of Jake Yoder's unconfirmed existence.
"boneyard is a horrifically alluring monster under the bed. It will draw you in on a bone-deep level; overawe you. Existentially profound and emotionally dangerous ... Read this and know how fiction can be a discovery."
Lonely Christopher
Scott Heim
Huffington Post calls it one of 11 Fall Books You Need to Know About
boneyard is my collaboration with Jake Yoder, a precocious and rather disturbed Amish boy. Jake's stories feature children who are crushed, imprisoned, and distorted, yet somehow flailing around with a kind of bedazzled awe, trying to find a way out. The strange logic and disturbing shifts in Jake's tales reveal a boy processing intense emotional experiences in the wake of his mother's suicide and his own proximity to the schoolroom shootings at Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, in 2006. Jake imagines fantastic journeys, magical transformations and rock stardom, it seems, as alternatives to the limitations of his life among the Amish. Jake's work is framed with commentary from myself and editor Judith Owsley Brown, in which we offer our very different views on Amish culture, literary context, political strategy in the face of endless imperial wars, the use of psychoactive medications for children, my own mental health, and the reality of Jake Yoder's unconfirmed existence.
"boneyard is a horrifically alluring monster under the bed. It will draw you in on a bone-deep level; overawe you. Existentially profound and emotionally dangerous ... Read this and know how fiction can be a discovery."
Lonely Christopher
MORE ABOUT boneyard
WHY NOT BUY IT? THE BEAUTIFUL COVER ART AND THE ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHRISTIAN MARTYRS INSIDE ARE EASILY WORTH THE COVER PRICE, EVEN IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE WRITING.
BUY IT NOW!
FROM
Indiebound
or Books Inc.
or AMAZON
or Barnes and Noble
or Powell's
or directly from Verse Chorus Press
WHY NOT BUY IT? THE BEAUTIFUL COVER ART AND THE ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHRISTIAN MARTYRS INSIDE ARE EASILY WORTH THE COVER PRICE, EVEN IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE WRITING.
BUY IT NOW!
FROM
Indiebound
or Books Inc.
or AMAZON
or Barnes and Noble
or Powell's
or directly from Verse Chorus Press
"...an exquisitively sensitive mindfuck: at once caressing and (consensually) aggressive, as hugely satisfying as it is unsettling." Jonathan Kiefer, SF Weekly
"Intelligent cultural critique wrapped in a twisty, turny, funny, damning fairy tale that happened neither long ago nor far away but every day and here." Rebecca Brown
A new Investigative Report examines the controversy swirling around Jake's reclusiveness:
"Intelligent cultural critique wrapped in a twisty, turny, funny, damning fairy tale that happened neither long ago nor far away but every day and here." Rebecca Brown
A new Investigative Report examines the controversy swirling around Jake's reclusiveness:
Read my playlist for boneyard at largehearted boy
Read my casting ideas for boneyard at My Book, the Movie
Read my interview with Tommy Theolynn at Lambda Literary
Read my casting ideas for boneyard at My Book, the Movie
Read my interview with Tommy Theolynn at Lambda Literary
