About the Book
Mormons meet Evel Knievel in this stunning coming-of-age novel about desire and escape
At the heart of this coming-of-age novel set in Arizona and Idaho in the mid-1970s is fifteen-year-old Loretta - a beautiful girl with sharp intelligence and courage beyond her years and experience. Raised by strict Mormon parents, she secretly slips out of her bedroom to meet a so-called gentile boy. When her parents catch her returning one night, she is punished and forced to marry the much older Dean Harder, a devout fundamentalist who already has a wife and children. The Harders relocate to his native Idaho, where Dean's teenage nephew, Jason, falls in love with Loretta. Jason worships Evel Knievel and longs to leave his close-minded community. He and Loretta make a daring break for it. They drive all night, stay in a hotel, and relish their dizzying burst of teenage freedom - including a drunken encounter with (possibly) Evel Knievel himself. But someone Loretta left behind is on their trail...
Shawn Vestal was born in 1966 in Gooding, Idaho. His story collection Godforsaken Idaho won the 2014 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize and was shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize. A graduate of the Eastern Washington University MFA program, his stories have appeared in Tin House, Ecotone,McSweeney's, Southern Review and other journals; his short memoir A.K.A. Charles Abbott recounts the story of his father, who took the family to Canada in flight from the law. He writes a column for Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, where he lives with his wife and son.
About the Author :
Shawn Vestal was born in 1966 in Gooding, Idaho. His story collection Godforsaken Idaho won the 2014 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize and was shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize. A graduate of the Eastern Washington University MFA program, his stories have appeared in Tin House, Ecotone, McSweeney's, Southern Review and other journals; his short memoir A.K.A. Charles Abbott recounts the story of his father, who took the family to Canada in flight from the law. He writes a column for Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, where he lives with his wife and son.
Review :
A noteworthy first novel
Adventure + love + stunt bikes = thrilling
Seventies Arizona, Mormons and motorbike stunt riders has the makings of a lost, great counterculture flick, but it's actually the premise for this debut novel born from America's dark religious heartland
One of those books that pops up now and then with one purpose, and one purpose only: to hit you right in the face... Daredevils gets it right on so many levels
Riveting... Illuminating... Daredevils brims with extraordinary characters... The narrative is fuelled by sexual desire and subversion - forces that shape her pathway to freedom
This is the energetic story of [Loretta's] escape and of America itself
A daring read that will draw you right in
Vestal captures the resigned disappointment of a very young woman who already knows that it's a rare man indeed who won't let you down... in Daredevils, she's the real daredevil
A fascinating coming of age story full of daring and passion
Rivetting... Loretta is a complex and compelling character... Adolescence anywhere traverses a rocky, chaotic landscape. Vestal gives readers an intimate and revealing look at growing up within the constrictions of an overbearing religious sect... As with his earlier short stories, Vestal's characters are superbly drawn in this compelling novel... Vestal has launched a thrilling motorcycle leap of his own, bold, fast-paced and seemingly headed for oblivion. Readers are advised to hang on for a wild and rewarding ride
Remarkable... [Vestal] presses into service a gifted eye for observation... It's a bravura passage in a novel brimming with them, runs of word-perfect sentences that burn themselves into your memory as if with a soldering iron. A little hard to believe, sometimes, that Vestal is a writer just out of the gate, but mostly it's just exciting to watch such a talent unspool itself... Vestal's prose is wonderfully measured and cadenced throughout, with an unforced lyricism that knows just when to take flight
[A] full-throttle, exhilarating debut novel about faith, daring and the unexpectedly glorious coming-of-age of a Mormon teenager... This on-the-road novel takes twists and turns that are on no literary map you've ever seen... Vestal plays with points of view at a dizzying speed, so that at times the novel feels like a symphonic chorus... The writing, too, feels revolutionary in how it startles you... Ingenious, haunting, wild and hilarious
Elegant... At its core, Daredevils is about the opposing forces at play in the American West. On the one hand, we have the wild freedom epitomised y Evel Knievel, whose voice punctuates the narrative, exhorting the younger characters to risk everything. Running counter to this is the strict discipline of the Mormon faith, which allowed Brigham Young and his followers to build a community in an inhospitable wilderness. The teenage protagonists of Daredevils are just beginning to confront the difficult balance between the two that maturity requires... Vestal... is a fine stylist. There's not a clunky sentence in this book
Vestal has created a riveting, rollicking thrill ride about throwing caution to the wind.
Shawn Vestal jumps forty buses in Daredevils, an electrifying debut novel that travels some dark roads of American religion and bravado, propelled by a major new voice in fiction
This debut novel captures the flailings and flights of hapless dreamers with prose that throbs like the strings of an electric bass playing its sad heart out in a near-desolate landscape
Vibrant, compelling... stocked with vivid characters... a riveting, rollicking thrill ride about throwing caution to the wind
Shawn Vestal's Daredevils busts open any expectations of a coming-of-age novel and transforms it into something fresh, vital and wild. And with Loretta, he has given us one of the most moving young protagonists in recent memory
Relentlessly enjoyable, surprising, inventive, and just plain heartwarming... Daredevils is a bona fide marvel that pairs two American originals: the complex human drama of Mormonism and the bigger-than-life bravura of 1970s icon Evel Knievel... I couldn't put it down as I cheered on Loretta until the very last page. A real wonder
A speeding stunt bike of a novel, propulsive and daring... A lucid, bright gem
Daring, moving, and tender.... Beautiful and at times heartbreaking, this book will knock you out
Daredevils is filled with wonderful 1970s nostalgia and the Evel Knievel moments interspersed throughout the novel are sheer brilliance. This is my favorite book of the Spring season!
Breathtaking and brash... he makes his entrance as if he were already a seasoned pro
