{"product_id":"all-the-darkness-holds-9781662931109","title":"All the Darkness Holds","description":"\u003cp\u003eClessie Bonaparte, a young biracial woman living on her father's farm in the Midwest in 1916, knows only a life of suffering. After her Ojibwe Native American mother dies under mysterious circumstances, Clessie is forced to live through the abuse meted out by her white father. When she discovers she's pregnant, she makes the fateful decision to flee her father's farm so that she and her child can have a better life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eClessie travels west to northern Arizona where she has her baby. Then, overcome again by the terrors she herself has had to survive, she makes the only choice she believes will ensure the baby won't suffer the same. Afterwards she flees into the forest with one intention: to disappear.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Months pass until she's discovered by Isaac, the foreman of a cattle ranch.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDespite her resolution to erase herself, Clessie finds Isaac's kindness and protective nature healing. As she continues to struggle to live beyond the brutality she's endured, Clessie opens her heart to make a new life with this man and to reckon once more with her father and her past.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLang, John:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003eJohn Lang was born into the Arizona State Adoption System, where he stayed until he was adopted out. At the age of thirteen he was arrested for stealing motorcycles and was sent to New Mexico Military Institute, where he wrote his first poem. Soon after that, he began writing short stories.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter he was released from the Institute he went on to forge a twenty-five-year career as a journeyman pop song lyricist and songwriter in Hollywood, California, writing songs for everyone from Tupac Shakur to Celine Dion, as well as the evergreen hits \"Broken Wings\" and \"Kyrie\" for the band Mr. Mister. During that time he continued to write fiction; he graduated from the MFA Writing program at Columbia University in 1992; won the William Faulkner Literary Competition with his short story \"Bent Spoon\" in 2018; and completed the novel, \"All the Darkness Holds,\" which was a semi-finalist in the 2024 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Writing keeps me hinged, ' he says. \"It always has. Early on I found that the life of the mind can be just as intoxicating as that of the sublunary world.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJohn Lang lives in southern California with his wife and son.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gatekeeper Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52160380043538,"sku":"9781662931109","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_33aa98b9-61c8-4465-bcf3-88595a59ab45.jpg?v=1775056986","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/all-the-darkness-holds-9781662931109","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}