Read The Ploughmen: A Novel by Kim Zupan Online

Zupan's complex and heartbreaking characters gripped me from the first page and have left me wondering still at the grace that affords us moments of generosity and compassion.” Mark Spragg, author of An Unfinished Life“A startling beautiful debut novel from a talented craftsmanThe tone recalls both Ace Atkins's western work (e.g., The Broken Places) and the languor of Ray Bradbury. Luminous…nothing short of brilliant…a firstnovel that leaves me impatient for the next.” Rick DeMarinis, author of The Year of the Zinc Penny and Borrowed Hearts: New and Selected Stories. With such a strong debut, Zupan's literary future looks exceptionally promising.” Library

Russell Rowland said Fabulous debut. The Ploughman explores one of my favorite topics, which the awkward form that friendships between men often take, especially in the West. In this case, the friendship that anchors the story is especially unlikely, and especially awkward, because it's between a young deputy sheriff and one. anonymoose said Mesmerizing. Like some other reviewers, I think this will be a classic. Would love to see a good indie movie made, but, as with the novel, the script would have to be superb. For those who suggest that Zupan is enamored of the thesaurus, good for him! Certainly, some words he used may be unfamiliar to. Excellent Best book in a long time. Best book in fact in several years. Highly recommend. Not at all a slow read.

Their uneasy friendship takes a startling turn with a brazen act of violence that yokes together two haunted souls by the secrets they share, and by the rugged country that keeps them.. With a disintegrating marriage further collapsing under the strain of his night duty, Millimaki finds himself seeking counsel from a man whose troubled past shares something essential with his own. An NPR Best Book of 2014A Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selectionA "bleak and brilliant" (Minneapolis Star Tribune) debut novel ,"one of the finest evocations of life in Western America in recent memory, a book that stands alongside Richard Ford's Rock Springs, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping, James Welch's Fools Crow." (William Kittredge)Steeped in a lonesome Montana landscape as unyielding and raw as it is beautiful, Kim Zupan's The Ploughmen is a new classic in the literature of the American West.At the center of this searing, fever dream of a novel are two mena killer awaiting trial, and a troubled young deputysitting across from each other in the dark, talking through the bars of a county jail cell: John Gload, so brutally adept at his craft that only now, at the age of 77, has he faced the prospect of long-term incarceration and Valentine Millimaki, low man in the Copper County sheriff's department, who draws the overni

He holds an MFA from the University of Montana. He has also worked as a smelterman, pro rodeo bareback rider, ranch hand, Alaska salmon fisherman and presently teaches carpentry at Missoula College. Kim Zupan, a native Montanan, lives in Missoula and grew up in and around Great Falls, where much of The Ploughmen is set. For twenty-five years Zupan made a living as a carpenter while pursuing his writing.