Description
** Winner of a 2019 Eric Hoffer Book Award **
Doug Horolez is a talentless boy hopelessly in love with his only friend, E. Summerson. That’s the good news. When E.’s sister is murdered in the woods behind town, Doug, to prove his devotion, joins a group of local pariahs, led by a deathly ill and eerily charismatic boy, who urges them to dig for clues to solve the girl's mysterious death. But as cultish bonds deepen within the group, their activities become more reckless and vengeful. Doug must then find his voice and act according to his conscience before the price to be loved becomes unspeakable violence. Keltner has created a coming-of-age novel and psychological thriller that investigates the recurrent mysteries of loss, loneliness, and the precarious desire to belong.
Authors
Levis Keltner is an author, editor, educator, and musician living in Austin, Texas. He is the co-founder and managing editor of Newfound and teaches writing at Texas State University.
Reviews
"Levis Keltner has given us a smart, engaging, and gracefully written story, full of surprises, beautifully plotted, and peopled by fascinating and complicated characters. I was spellbound from start to finish. What a truly wonderful book this is."—Tim O’Brien
"You know how we often talk about the debuts that rocked us and made an author jump into our 'buy everything they publish' list? Well, this is one of those books."—LitReactor
"Levis Keltner's debut has echoes of William Golding and Ian McEwan. Haunting and moving, Into That Good Night is a dark twist on the coming-of-age narrative that you will not easily forget. This one will keep you reading well past your bedtime. Keltner is the real thing." -- William Jensen, author of Cities of Men
"Thoroughly gripping and emotionally compelling. A smart, moving, brilliantly written debut." --–Kathy Fish, author of A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness
"If The Breakfast Club were a witchy murder mystery, you’d have Into That Good Night. With his shocking awareness of human nature and the forces that propel us through the dark absurdity of life, Levis Keltner will make you laugh, cry, and shudder in fear at the horrors we are all capable of."--Tatiana Ryckman, author of I Don't Think of You (Until I Do)
"Ever wonder what would happen if Stranger Things had a threesome with Stephen King's The Body and the 1997 cult film I Know What You Did Last Summer? Levis Keltner's rollicking debut, Into that Good Night, is exactly the kind of novel such an unholy union would, and should, produce. Roll up your sleeves, take a deep breath, and enter a mesmerizing world 'where magic is still possible.'"--David James Poissant, author of The Heaven of Animals
"While the deepening mystery propels us anxiously forward, what compels us to linger is Levis Keltner's keen understanding of the aches of coming of age—the ache to belong, the ache to be loved, the ache to be an individual entirely separate and unique. Our teenage years are anything but gentle on us, and Into That Good Night is no more gentle.” --Kevin Grauke, author of Shadows of Men
"The characters in this novel haven’t lived long enough to understand that social rivalries aren't more urgent than death. An existential mystery story only partly about who did it and why, Into that Good Night explores the difference between what's right and what others tell us is right. This elegant, wise novel with its profound insights about adolescence and tribal loyalty makes us flinch with recognition about the difficult navigation into selfhood. Everyone’s rite of passage isn’t this dark, but this is everyone's rite of passage." --Debra Monroe, author of My Unsentimental Education
"Haunting, moving, and impossible to put down, Into That Good Night unearths the fear and redemption that surround a group of teenagers in the wake of a mysterious death. In this solid debut novel, Levis Keltner shows us how compassion can rise from the ashes of what tragedy leaves behind, that sometimes the most important lessons might be the most burning." –Robert Wilder, author of Nickel and Daddy Needs a Drink.
