Summary
In the tradition of the finest American writers of the South and southwest, award-winning poet Daniel Villasenor stakes out new terrain in this exquisite debut novel.
Written with bold thematic artistry in muscular prose and an economy of style that is entirely his own, Daniel Villasenor has crafted a passionate story about identity and meaning. It is the tale of Zachary Brannagan, a brilliant young philosopher undone by years of grappling with intellectual abstractions. After he sets out to reconnect with the world he has studiously avoided, he finds himself at one evanescent place: the lake. Here he meets a woman whose work and being draw him from a life of the mind to a life of concrete, physical experience. Her breathtaking competence awakens Zach to the powerful bonds created through skilled physical labor, the beauty of working with the body. Together they come through tragedy to the lasting succor of love.
Both rhapsodic and precise, Villasenor's singular narrative style evokes character and consciousness with knife-edge precision and a distinct vision of the American landscape. The Lake is a haunting, sublime American story that marks the arrival of a masterful new voice in fiction.
