God Says No

"A tender, funny tour of a mind struggling to do the right thing. Arevelatory and sympathetic guide to a misunderstood world." --Steve Martin, author of "Shopgirl" and "Born Standing Up" "James Hannaham's GOD SAYS NO introduces a groundbreaking new Americanvoice: a writer of spectacular sentences who has trained his sights on aworld that has hardly been touched by literary fiction. Topical andambitious, disturbing and hilarious, GOD SAYS NO is everything a personcould ask of a first novel -- and twice that much. " --Jennifer Egan, author of "Look at Me" and "The Keep" "This novel is an absolute original. Gary Gray's search for wholeness andacceptance is a heartfelt (and often very funny) plea for all men (andwomen) to be embraced just as they are. A wonderful debut." --Martha Southgate, author of "Third Girl From The Left" "GOD SAYS NO is a book that was desperate to be written but well out ofreach. And then James Hannaham came along and wrote it, with the kind ofcare, wit, sympathy and fury that the book deserved. Imagine Candide...--okay, imagine Candide as a black man, a southerner, a Christianfundamentalist, middle-class, obese, married, a father, and utterly, evenprofoundly gay. If a comedy, in the classical sense, is a story then ends in amarriage, and a tragedy is a story that ends with a death, then what do youcall a book that ends with a split and a resurrection? A truly daring firstnovel, and something to read." --Jim Lewis, author of "Why the Tree Loves the Ax"