Reminiscent of Kent Haruf and Cormac McCarthy, Bruce Machart's debut novel is a dark family saga set in the American Southwest.

On a moonless Texas night in 1895, an ambitious young landowner suffers the loss of -the only woman he's ever been fond of- when his wife dies during childbirth with the couple's fourth son, Karel. The boy is forever haunted by thoughts of the mother he never knew, by the bloodshot blame in his father's eyes, and permanently marked by the yoke he and his brothers are forced to wear to plow the family fields. From an early age, Karel proves so...