Creative writing professor’s work a ‘Best Book to Give This Year’

Creative writing professor’s work a ‘Best Book to Give This Year’
Tuesday, December 8, 2020

The New York Times Book Review has included “All God’s Children,” by English Associate Professor Aaron Gwyn, on its list of The Best Books to Give This Year.

A novel about remarkable people living on the edge of freedom and slavery, “All God’s Children” brings to life the paradoxes of the American frontier — a place of liberty and bondage, wild equality and cruel injustice.

According to the New York Times review, under the category, historical fiction, “‘All God’s Children’ is a powerful depiction of the rough realities of frontier life, of the vicious influence of racism in a place where ‘men who didn’t dare look at you in daylight might burn you alive come sundown.’”

UNC Charlotte English Professor Mark West, in his popular blog “Storied Charlotte,” wrote more about Gwyn’s book.

“All God’s Children” came out in October and has earned extensive praise. Publishers Weekly described it as an overwhelmingly visceral and emotionally rich narrative set amid Texas’s complex path to statehood that makes readers care deeply about the characters’ fates. “This is a masterpiece of western fiction in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy and James Carlos Blake,” the review noted in praising the work for its portrayal of the American West.

The reviewer for Lone Star Literary Life wrote, “’All God’s Children’ is a stunner. In this beautifully written historical epic, westward expansion, race relations and the nation’s mythical place as ‘a shining city on a hill’ collide in an explosive, lyrical reckoning.”

Aaron GwynGwyn draws from his life experiences, including growing up on a cattle ranch, in his writing and teaching.

He was raised on a cattle ranch in rural Oklahoma. In addition to his new book, he is the author of a story collection, “Dog on the Cross” (finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award), and two other novels, “The World Beneath” and “Wynne’s War.”  His short stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in Esquire, McSweeney’s, Glimmer Train, The Missouri Review, Gettysburg Review and New Stories from the South.

At UNC Charlotte, Gwyn teaches fiction writing and American literature. He earned a doctorate from the University of Denver, a master’s degree from Oklahoma State University and a bachelor’s degree from East Central University.