Out There: A Novel

Sarah Stark. Leaf Storm Press, $17.95 paper (238p) ISBN 978-0-9914105-0-7

In this lyrical, evocative novel, Stark summons the possibility of salvation in tragedy. Iraq war veteran Jefferson Long Soldier returns home with a wounded soul and a copy of Gabriel García Márquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, which he carried with him through combat and credits for saving his life. But when neither family nor a psychologist can help ease his transition to civilian life, Jefferson journeys by motorbike across Mexico in search of salvation and the reclusive García Márquez. A tribute to magical realism and the transforming power of fiction, Stark’s novel juxtaposes violence and gentleness and merges logic with sensuous atmosphere to question the boundaries of reality. Jefferson’s struggle for peace reveals an existence as fluid and magical as a dream—but with consequences.