John Gregory Brown

John Gregory Brown's debut novel examines family, race, and faith in a heartbreaking tale of identity, devotion, and regret. The story centers on the Eagen family of New Orleans, Irish Catholics of "mixed blood" in a city where race defines destiny. In 1965 Thomas Eagen and his twelve-years-old twins, Meredith and Lowell, abruptly drive off, leaving his second wife, Catherine, and their home. As they cross Lake Pontchartrain, a section of the bridge collapses, injuring Murphy Warrington, an African American man who once worked for Thomas's father. Murphy becomes the catalyst for a series of revelations about Thomas's light-skinned black mother and the reasons she abandoned her husband and son when Thomas was an infant.

A Virginia Book Award Finalist"A beautiful, haunting novel."--Tom Franklin"John Gregory Brown is a writer I've long admired, and this new novel is his best book yet. A Thousand Miles from Nowhere is a marvelous depiction of one man's stumbling journey from despair toward a hard-won redemption."--Ron Rash"You have lost everything, yes?" Everything? Henry thought; he considered the word. Had he lost everything?Fleeing New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina approaches, Henry Garrett is haunted by the ruins of his marriage, a squandered inheritance, and the teaching job he inexplicably quit. He pulls into a small Virginia town after three days on the road, hoping to silence the ceaseless clamor in his head. But this quest for peace and quiet as the only guest at a roadside motel is destroyed when Henry finds himself at the center of a bizarre and violent tragedy. As a result, Henry winds up stranded at the ramshackle motel just outside the small town of Marimore, and it's there that he is pulled into the lives of those around him: Latangi, the motel's recently widowed proprietor, who seems to have a plan for Henry; Marge, a local secretary who marshals the collective energy of her women's church group; and the family of an old man, a prisoner, who dies in a desperate effort to provide for his infirm wife.For his previous novels John Gregory Brown has been lauded for his "compassionate vision of human destiny" as well as his "melodic, haunting, and rhythmic prose." With A Thousand Miles from Nowhere, he assumes his place in the tradition of such masterful storytellers as Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy, offering to readers a tragicomic tour de force about the power of art and compassion and one man's search for faith, love, and redemption.

Adopted by a wealthy, bed-confined white woman, Shelton, a young African-American boy, is crippled by an accident and taken in by the wily Minou and his family, who offer him guidance in a race-torn world and the secret of his birth. Reprint.

From the acclaimed author of Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, Audubon’s Watch is “a brazen performance” (New York Times Book Review) inspired by a brief journal entry made by the artist and ornithologist John James Audubon. This richly atmospheric novel traces the paths of two men whose lives are inextricably linked by the tragic events of a single night. Part historical novel, part Victorian murder mystery, Audubon’s Watch “peels away the familiar legend portion of the biography to explore the private mysteries of memory, remorse, and the redemption of pain” (Los Angeles Times). This is a mesmerizing tale, and “in the end, the subject matter of Brown’s material . . . permits him to capture, in midflight as it were, the hummingbird pulse of the human heart” (Orlando Sentinel).

A sampling from John Gregory Brown's 10k project, ten thousand images created solely with an iPhone and Instagram.