Daredevils

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From the winner of 2014 s PEN Robert W Bingham Prize, an unforgettable debut novel about Loretta, a teenager married off as a sister wife, who makes a break for freedom At the heart of this exciting debut novel, set in Arizona and Idaho in the mid 1970s, is fifteen year old Loretta, who slips out of her bedroom every evening to meet her so called gentile boyfriend Her strict Mormon parents catch her returning one night, and promptly marry her off to Dean Harder, a devout yet materialistic fundamentalist who already has a wife and a brood of kids The Harders relocate to his native Idaho, where Dean s teenage nephew Jason falls hard for Loretta A Zeppelin and Tolkien fan, Jason worships Evel Knievel and longs to leave his close minded community He and Loretta make a break for it They drive all night, stay in hotels, and relish their dizzying burst of teenage freedom as they seek to recover Dean s cache of Mormon gold But someone Loretta left behind is on their trail A riveting story of desire and escape, Daredevils boasts memorable set pieces and a rich cast of secondary characters There s Dean s other wife, Ruth, who as a child in the 1950s was separated from her parents during the notorious Short Creek raid, when federal agents descended on a Mormon fundamentalist community There s Jason s best friend, Boyd, part Native American and caught up in the activist spirit of the time, who comes along for the ride, with disastrous results And Vestal s ultimate creation is a superbly sleazy chatterbox a man who might or might not be Evel Knievel himself who works his charms on Loretta at a casino in Elko, Nevada.A lifelong journalist whose Spokesman column is a fixture in Spokane, WA, Shawn has honed his fiction over many years, publishing in journals like McSweeney s and Tin House His stunning first collection, Godforsaken Idaho, burrowed into history as it engaged with masculinity and crime, faith and apostasy, and the West that he knows so well Daredevils shows what he can do on a broader canvas a fascinating, wide angle portrait of a time and place that s both a classic coming of age tale and a plunge into the myths of America, sacred and profane. New Read Daredevils [ Author ] Shawn Vestal [ Kindle ePUB or eBook ] – kino-fada.fr I reviewed Godforsaken Idaho and I got an email from GoodReads that it was my most read review, so I felt compelled to grab Vestal s newest book as soon as it came available I enjoy Vestal s writing and it doesn t hurt that I grew up in the 70s, was raised Mormon, was born in Southern Idaho, watched Evel Knievel on Wide World of Sports, and lived in Southern Utah for awhile My daughters actually had a fundamentalist girl as their nanny for a time when they were growing up So of course this bo I reviewed Godforsaken Idaho and I got an email from GoodReads that it was my most read review, so I felt compelled to grab Vestal s newest book as soon as it came available I enjoy Vestal s writing and it doesn t hurt that I grew up in the 70s, was raised Mormon, was born in Southern Idaho, watched Evel Knie...I love a good coming of age story, throw in some Mormon polygamists and you got yourself a page turner.Could NOT PUT IT DOWN Full disclosure I received a free e ARC for review through NetGalley Trigger warning for rape and child abuse She thinks of the thick dowel that had been lodged against the sliding window in her bedroom Dean had cut the wood to size, and climbed a ladder to her second story window and put it there, so even on the hottest days she cannot slide it open She thinks of the gold A bag of gold like in a fairy tale She thinks of taking that gold away from him, and keepi Could NOT PUT IT DOWN Full disclosure I received a free e ARC for review through NetGalley Trigger warning for rape and child abuse She thinks of the thick dowel that had been lodged against the sliding window in her bedroom Dean had cut the wood to size, and climbed a ladder to her second story window and put it there, so even on the hottest days she cannot slide it open She thinks of the gold A bag of gold like in a fairy tale She thinks of taking that ...There are not many Mormons in fiction and I m not sure why, perhaps because they remain a mystery to non Mormons Shawn Vestal lived in the region he writes about and knows it well, it comes across in the portrayal of the landscape from jackrabbits to sand flats and the normalizing of LDS people vs the fundamentalist polygamists found in the book I mean, in what universe are the LDS people the normal ones That would only make sense to someone who knows Mormonism and has lived in Utah Arizon There are not many Mormons in fiction and I m not sure why, perhaps because they remain a mystery to non Mormons Shawn Vestal lived in the region he writes about and knows it well, it comes across in the portrayal of the landscape from jackrabbits to sand flats and the normalizing of LDS peopl...Loretta is a beautiful teenage girl, and she wants to do what most teenage girls want to do Date boys, go out in the evenings, drink beer and generally let her hair down Except Loretta belongs to a strict Mormon family and all of those things that Loretta wants to do are forbidden.When Loretta s father discovers that Loretta has been climbing out of her bedroom window at night to meet a boy, he is livid He locks her in her bedroom and nails her window shut Which is bad enough, but then he pr Loretta is a beautiful teenage girl, and she wants to do what most teenage girls want to do Date boys, go out in the evenings, drink beer and generally let her hair down Except Loretta belongs to a strict Mormon family and all of those things that Loretta wants to do are forbidden.When Loretta s father discovers that Loretta has been climbing out of her bedroom window at night to meet a boy, he is livid He locks her in her bedroom and nails her window shut Which is bad enough, but then he promises her in marriage to a man old enough to be her father, a man who already has a wife and several children There is nothing Loretta can do, she is trapped.After months of marriage, and domestic servitude with her husband and his family, Loretta and...We all have topics we can t pass up, that consistently hook our interest, and for me, Mormon fundamentalists are near the top of that list Ever since I read Jon Krakauer s Under the Banner of Heaven A Story of Violent Faith, I ve been fascinated with this secretive sect, the ways leaders manipulate and coerce their followers, and how they clash with governing authorities outside their own twisted hierarchy So when I read about Daredevils, a novel about a teenage girl running away from a polyg We all have topics we can t pass up, that consistently hook our interest, and for me, Mormon fundamentalists are near the top of that list Ever since I read Jon Krakauer s Under the Banner of Heaven A Story of Violent Faith, I ve been fascinated with this secretive sect, the ways leaders manipulate and coerce their followers, and how they clash with governing authorities outside their own twisted hierarchy So when I read about Daredevils, a novel about a teenage girl running away from a polygamous marriage in the 1970s, I put it right at the top of my list.Loretta is only fifteen when her parents force her to marry Dean, a middle aged man who already has one wife and...Why aren t there half stars on Goodreads On the 4 side of 3.5 stars Good writing, promising concept, just didn t end up much of anywhere.This book was so incredibly interesting I could barely put it down at times I loved that it took place in the 1970s I loved the characters and how complex and different they were Everything was so well written, it blew my mind ...I would describe Daredevils not as a coming of age story butof a loss of innocence story Each of the main characters loses their innocence in one way or another Loretta is the pivot point and she loses her innocence early when she sneaks out of her strict Mormon home to meet her older boyfriend She then loses her innocence again as she is married off as a sister wife to Dean When the family moves to a different state and Dean rejoins his brother and family...This is a uniquely 1970s coming of age story set in isolated communities of fundamentalist LDS believers along the Arizona border Three teenagers, from families that did not originate from FLDS communities, moved and became semi involved when they were middle school aged The transition left each child yearning for a former life and a sense of belonging that their current lives could not provide As each child struggled to assert their independence, they were pushed back to conform No oneThis is a uniquely 1970s coming of age story set in isolated communities of fundamentalist LDS believers along the Arizona border Three teenagers, from families that did not originate from FLDS communities, moved and became semi involved when they were middle school aged The transition left each child yearning for a former life and a sense of belonging that their current lives could not provide As each child struggled to assert their independence, they were pushed back to conform No oneso than Loretta who is promptly married off as a sister wife at 15 when her father learns she sneaks out at night In one bold move the three teens take a car and drive off one night to fi...

Daredevils
  • 19 February 2017
  • Hardcover
  • 320 pages
  • 1101979895
  • Shawn Vestal
  • Daredevils