First Make Mad
A Novel
- Fiction
- Publisher: Cascade Books (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2024
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Publisher's Description
First Make Mad is a day's journey into the soul of Roman Moran. A father and a fisherman, a writer and a grocery store clerk, a sinner and a mystic, Roman makes his way through a single Ash Wednesday in the curious town of Hot Springs, Arkansas. There the ghosts of gangsters and Native Americans whisper on the mist-wreathed mountainsides, and the dead of Roman's own family form a chorus such as Odysseus might have heard as he coursed over the Mediterranean Sea. The odyssey of the Moran family, though here told only in brief, is replete with its own cast of monsters and maidens, prophecies and visions, and descents into the realm of the dead. In the end, it confronts the mystery of the ways of men and women, of the return home and the renewed ascent of the marriage bed in the face of a world shot through with grace but subject still to the power of death.
Endorsements (2)
“Danny Fitzpatrick has accomplished something only great authors can achieve with such seeming ease—he has written a story that confines itself to a single day and yet, in its subtle movements and plunging themes, feels epic in its reach. At times, his prose recalls Joyce in its lyricism and fluidity; other times, I was reminded of McCarthy’s deft handling of the real and the mundane. Ultimately, Fitzpatrick’s style is all his own, with descriptions both incisive and tender, with moments so intimate they ricochet into the universal. First Make Mad is a novella that reaches from heaven down to hell while remaining ever tethered to our corporal reality as it explores grief and love, fatherhood and faith, and the ways we navigate the fathomless complexities of human relationships.”
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