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Molly by Kevin Honold was selected by Dan Chaon as the winner of the 2020 Autumn House Fiction Prize and is a compelling story of enduring hardships in rural New Mexico.
This debut novel tells the story of nine-year-old Raymond, nicknamed “Ray Moon” by Molly, his adoptive caretaker, a waitress, and the former partner of his recently deceased uncle. These two outcasts rely on one another for survival, and their bond forms the heart of this book. Living atop a mesa in the high desert of New Mexico in 1968, Raymond ages quickly amid hostile circumstances. With the help of a keen imagination that Molly inspires, he navigates various forms of loss and exploitation amid enduring hardship.
Kevin Honold’s deft and trance-like prose is interspersed with sharp insights and brings attention to the hardships of capitalism, the ills of misogyny, and the raw hurt of living a displaced or marginalized life. This is a story of endurance, memory, and unceasing change.
"There is a particularly satisfying aptness when the beauties of the American Southwest inspire a beautiful book—which Molly is." —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
"The understated narration dramatizes Ray and Molly’s struggles, which are at once humble and epic. I became deeply attached to Ray and Molly and enthralled by the seasoned, somber writing." —Cary Holladay, The Hudson Review
". . . has the kind of beautiful strangeness that heralds a classic." —Bethanne Patrick, Lit Hub
"Molly is a wondrously strange and lyrical rural noir, with an almost phantasmagorical vividness in its New Mexico landscape and a tender and heartfelt sympathy for its marginal characters. Honold is a true original." —Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will
Kevin Honold is the author of the novels, Our Lady of Good Voyage (winner of the 2021 Orison Fiction Prize) and Molly (winner of the 2020 Autumn House Fiction Prize), an essay collection, The Rock Cycle (winner of the 2019 River Teeth Book Prize), and a poetry collection, Men as Trees Walking (winner of the 2009 OSU Press/The Journal Book Award). Honold is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati, and is currently a History and Special Education teacher in Santa Fe, New Mexico.