Falling Stones is a compelling tale of the quest for spiritual 
meaning in early nineteenth-century rural America. Sylvester 
Marion Jones, born in 1836, inhabits a guilt-laden Protestant 
domain, saturated with ominous signs and wonders. His childhood 
is marked first by demonic visions and later by his young brother’s 
mysterious disappearance, for which his father blames him. Grown 
up, Sylvester is drawn into marriage with a young woman 
suspected of witchcraft. Still a seeker of light, he finally achieves 
the purgation of his house—at the savage cost of acknowledging 
the demon in himself.

    "With authentic power, Charles Wyatt revisits the uncanny world 
of an America just a step away from wilderness. In the tradition of 
Hawthorne, Melville, and of G. G. Marquez’s One Hundred Years 
of Solitude, he brings to life one man’s fight against inner and 
outer chaos."—Judith Grossman

    "Falling Stones is unlike any other book I know, a true original. I 
can imagine no one reading it in anything but a single sitting—the 
suspense is utter, the literary spell beautifully cast. It deals with 
dark family conflicts and unseen forces and inexplicable menace, 
and its mysteries remain, still resonating mysteriously even after 
the story has concluded. This is fiction with a rare and strange 
poetry in it."—Joan Silber

    "Wyatt is a magician . . . in his ability to provide a psychological 
as well as physical explanation for the mysteries found in Falling 
Stones. However we choose to interpret the story, though, the 
enchantment remains."—James McConkey
 
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CHARLES WYATT, 2002–2003 Writer in Residence at the 
University of Central Oklahoma (Edmund) is the author of 
Listening to Mozart, winner of the 1995 John Simmons Award 
from University of Iowa Press. He has taught creative writing at 
Binghamton University and Denison University, but before this 
incarnation he spent more than twenty-five years as an orchestral 
musician: principal flutist of the Nashville Symphony. For fun, he 
writes poetry and plays chamber music with his wife, Cindy, a 
harpist who really did play on Elvis’s last album.


Visit author Charles Wyatt's website at www.charleswyatt.com