Author-editor Dabnet Stuart best summarises this debut novel "as relentless as Euripides, or Faulkner, whose "As I Lay Dying" is its formal model. Its central preoccupation is the sins (or in more secular terms, 'behaviour patterns') of fathers and mothers passing into the lives of their offspring. It also reminds us how many people, living and dead, ghost our daily experience, complicating and enriching our choices. Barton includes the dimension of mercy too -- the mutual forgiveness of failures by family members who, finally, find ways to realise they can't live without each other. An impressive, uncompromising book.
Marlin Barton
Marlin Barton was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and grew up in Forkland, Alabama. "Bart" had dyslexia as a child. In order to overcome it, he did special exercises every day while his mother read to him. He also enjoyed listening to stories told by his father and grandparents and by customers of his grandfather's store.
Upon graduation from the University of Alabama (1985) and Wichita State University in Kansas (1990), Barton taught writing at Auburn University, Huntingdon College, and Clemson University. In 1997 he joined the "Writing Our Stories" program of the Alabama Writers' Forum and the Alabama Department of Youth Services, teaching writing classes to juvenile offenders.
Barton began publishing his short stories in the 1990's and has won several awards. His first collection of stories, "The Dry Well," was published in 2001. Since then he has published a novel and a second collection of short stories.
For more information, see the website of Frederic C. Beil, Publisher (www.beil.com).
