Like the Puritan-era narratives she studies, Hannah Guttentag’s early-1990s narrative is a chronicle of the strange places she travels—Nashville, Ithaca, New Orleans, Cleveland, Nebraska—the savages who captivate her—librarians, grad students, professors, her baby—and the redemption she earns.

Josh Russell's previous novels are Yellow Jack and My Bright Midnight. An Illinois native—born in Carbondale, raised in Normal—he now lives in Decatur, Georgia with his wife and daughter.