{"id":38066,"date":"2017-08-30T08:44:14","date_gmt":"2017-08-30T14:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=38066"},"modified":"2018-09-21T08:46:35","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T14:46:35","slug":"2017-15-bytes-book-awards-fiction-finalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/2017-15-bytes-book-awards-fiction-finalists\/","title":{"rendered":"2017 15 Bytes Book Awards: Fiction Finalists"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
<\/a>The 5th Annual 15 Bytes Book Awards is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2017 Fiction Award.As with all nominees, finalists were eligible for consideration if they were published professionally in 2016 and had a connection to Utah via themes, setting, or author\u2019s residence. The finalists were determined by 15 Bytes\u2019 staff and guest judges based on two criteria: quality of writing\/artistry and that\u00a0indefinable quality that makes a book special and unforgettable<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s finalists include the following (in no particular order):<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a>The House Across from the Deaf School\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(Texas Review Press)\u00a0<\/em>by Michael Gills<\/p>\n

Both a straight-talker and a poet at heart, Joey Harvell revisits his childhood home in Arkansas to plumb the wildness that still ricochets out from those early years: his \u201creal-deal\u201d mother, his violent step-dad, his kinship with a kindly Cherokee family, and the blistering ride that Joey takes to manhood. In these powerful linked short stories, Michael Gills\u2019 love of language in service of deep understanding shines.<\/p>\n

When first we enter \u201cthe house across from the deaf school,\u201d it is on the day Joey\u2019s parents marry and leave him on the front porch while they consummate their union. Their marital bliss lasts about an hour. Then dire reality sets in. Years later, when Joey enters that same house, breaking and entering to gain access, he walks into his childhood: \u201cThe slant of light through the windows and the way the floor feels beneath my feet. An odor, or the trace of an odor that sneaks deep into you the way a piece of clothing from a person dead thirty years can take you right there . . .\u201d The reader is right there as well, lost in a dim house as a man grapples with his hardscrabble past, a past that keeps coming round to haunt him.<\/p>\n

Or does Joey Harvell haunt\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0past? As author William Gibson has intoned, \u201cTime moves in one direction, memory in another.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pig slaughter, the hard tackles, the sucker punches, the betrayals, all trespass into Joey\u2019s present. He longs to know, examine, refract. \u201cArkansas was, and remains . . . a frontier state,\u201d he tells us. That frontier heat still pumps his veins. As a longtime university professor, with a wife and daughter, Joey cannot help but wonder whether he actually did get out of Lonoke, Arkansas, alive. And the way his past and present tangle up, you have to wonder with him.<\/p>\n

Deep inside Gills\u2019 unflinching masculine honesty come moments of generosity and grace, \u201cinhabiting the place where the day is forever at hand.\u201d In this fine book, a man looks back with real attention to embrace his past\u2014all of it\u2014to hold it, admit it, claim it, circle it round. Time\u2019s stubborn arrow bends to human will in Michael Gills\u2019 generous imagination.<\/p>\n

Read a full review by 15 Bytes\u2019 new Literary Associate Calvin Jolley\u00a0here<\/a>, and the 15 Bytes interview of the author by Tamara Thomson\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Andrew Hunt, courtesy of the author<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Desolation Flats<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>(Minotaur), by Andrew Hunt<\/p>\n

With his novel,\u00a0Desolation\u00a0Flats<\/em>, Andrew Hunt delivers a period piece of intrigue set in a volatile time just before World War II when Nazi propaganda collides with speed, mystery, and Mormonism. Hunt takes the reader to the stark white nothing of the Bonneville Salt Flats where men push themselves and their vehicles to break speed records across the flat ashen expanse at whatever cost.<\/p>\n

DesolationFlats<\/em>\u00a0is a novel of Utah in our father\u2019s and grandfather\u2019s age when we would have thought the world was innocent. But Hunt\u2019s version is anything but that. Murder. Espionage. Sexy Nazi Frauleins. International repercussions. The FBI. The novel takes the reader on a breakneck tour of northern Utah all along the Wasatch Front and west to Wendover.<\/p>\n

Desolation\u00a0Flats embodies the state and its people in a time forgotten but so far-sighted in today\u2019s ill-timed America.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Gerald Elias<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Playing with Fire<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Severn House), by Gerald Elias<\/p>\n

The newest novel in Gerald Elias\u2019 series featuring Daniel Jacobus, a blind, retired violinist, is a mystery that highlights the professional side of the violin trade, including some playing of the instrument, but the story centers on the making, insuring and dealing. Which sounds like it could get dull, but like anything of value, there is a seedy underbelly of fraud in the selling and insuring of violins.<\/p>\n

The story begins on Christmas Eve, when Jacobus and his friends\u2019 evening is interrupted by a panicked call from a local violin maker. The next day, Jacobus learns the violinmaker is missing and his house has been burned down. The local police enlist Jacobus\u2019 expertise and the mystery unfolds as Jacobus and his friends work to solve the mystery, as it continues to complicate.<\/p>\n

Gerald Elias should be commended for creating such strong characters, particularly the main character. Daniel Jacobus is not terribly likeable, but that is part of why he\u2019s strong. Jacobus is memorable and engaging in his flaws, and his actions throughout agree with the established character. The next point of praise must be the story line itself\u2014it is an unexpected combination of the professional music world and criminal corruption that pulls the reader along.<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

The winner of the award will be announced in September during the\u00a0Utah Humanities Book Festival<\/a>. Stay tuned for the award ceremonies and readings. \u00a0Finalists in poetry, creative nonfiction and art book \u00a0will be announced soon.<\/p>\n

15 Bytes and its publisher Artists of Utah thanks everyone who nominated a book for this award and for their support of the literary arts in the Beehive State.<\/p>\n

Congratulations to the finalists!<\/h4>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 5th Annual 15 Bytes Book Awards is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2017 Fiction Award.As with all nominees, finalists were eligible for consideration if they were published professionally in 2016 and had a connection to Utah via themes, setting, or author\u2019s residence. The finalists were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":834,"featured_media":38067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3230,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-awards","category-literary-arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/bookawardsfiction-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 13:12:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/834"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38066"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38069,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38066\/revisions\/38069"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}