The Clearing - Rilegato

“Gautreaux writes beautifully about terrible things, about war and life and death . . . Word for word, it’s my favorite novel this year.”
--Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today

“With poetic efficiency . . . the novel moves with the pacing of twilight . . . A story that’s at once tender and unrelentingly exciting.”
--Ron Charles, Christian Science Monitor

“Tim Gautreaux weaves a plot so compelling . . . so filled with eternal truths that it transcends place and time.”
--Kelly Margaret Smith, Southern Living

“A masterpiece . . . Wit, wisdom, and heart are all combined in perfect proportion in this astonishing and unforgettable novel.”
--Susan Larson, New Orleans Times-Picayune

Tim Gautreaux's The Clearing presents the reader with an interesting dilemma: do you give in to the stifling suspense and read quickly, to find out what happens to the novel's vivid characters, or do you go slow, savoring each delicious sentence, and thereby risking, by the climax, a nervous breakdown?
--Richard Russo

“In The Clearing, native Louisianan Tim Gautreaux has created an unforgettably harsh world of man-killing reptiles, razor-swinging woodcutters, taped-together shotguns, and tractless, thousand-year-old cypress forests. Out of this heart of darkness comes a beautifully crafted story of two brothers and their incredible violent battle to preserve family love and human decency in a place gone haywire.”
--Howard Frank Mosher

"The power and complexity of The Clearing stem not only from the larger themes of loss, human ruin, and the redemptive force of love, but also from Tim Gautreaux's finely pitched capture of place and its effect on human nature and endeavor. What makes this novel a modern masterpiece is that while Gautreaux never blinks from the story, the reader begins to comprehend the layers upon layers of American fable, myth, and parable contained within the pages. A superb novel, from the very first page."
--Jeffrey Lent

“As a reader passes through the contagion of violence within this story, what is remembered are the tendrils of compassion and tenderness, small but enduring. Tim Gautreaux is a wonderful writer, and The Clearing is a unique and fascinating story.”
--Rick Bass

“I have long been an avid admirer of Tim Gautreaux, but after reading The Clearing I came to a rare and notable state of mind as a reader. Hereafter, as with Mississippi and Faulkner, Northern California and Steinbeck, Georgia and O’Connor, when I think of Louisiana, I will hear the voice of Tim Gautreaux. He has for me become an enduring presence not just in the world of books but in the American landscape.”
--Robert Olen Butler

“This dark story, told in the clearest prose, compels you forward like a handcar on a downhill slope, until the final escape. With The Clearing Tim Gautreaux makes himself a clearing on the shelf of books you have to keep. You read it in wonder.”
--Kent Haruf

Born and raised in Louisiana, Tim Gautreaux lives there, in Hammond, with his family, and is Writer-in-Residence at Southeastern Louisiana University. His work has appeared in Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, and Zoetrope, as well as the O. Henry and Best American short-story annuals. His first novel, The Next Step in the Dance, won the 1999 Southeastern Booksellers Award, and he has also published two collections of short fiction.