Set in Central America and in middle Tennessee, Barry Kitterman's 
debut novel gives us two intertwined stories: In the first, Tanner 
Johnson, nearing midlife, has left his pregnant wife and taken a job as 
a baker, working nights, trying to avoid a shadowy presence that 
haunts him from the past. In the second, Tanner relives his painful 
experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in Belize, where he taught at 
a boys' reform school nearly a quarter century ago. Haunted by the 
past, he struggles to find the courage to accept his role as a husband 
and prospective father.

"In The Baker's Boy Barry Kitterman gives us a haunting of the most 
universal kind: the ghost is a man's mortal past, which tears through 
the veil of memory to demand a reckoning. Tanner, like all of us, 
struggles to make a whole person out of his broken parts, and how he 
succeeds makes for a touching read."—Monica Wood, author of Any 
Bitter Thing

"Not since Lord of the Flies has a book haunted me like this. With 
his heartbreaking story of the boys of Belize, Kitterman hits the 
writer's sweet spot."—Paula Wall, author of The Wilde Women

"The Baker's Boy could be thought of as a Peace Corps novel on 
the Huck Finn/Moby Dick model—boy goes out into the world, finds 
difficulty—but that would ignore its particular excellences. Kitterman 
writes a fine quiet prose and presents us with idiosyncratic characters 
we learn to cherish and root for. A splendid work."—William Kittredge, 
author of The Willow Field

_________________________________________________________

BARRY KITTERMAN has lived and taught in Belize, China, Taiwan, 
Ohio, and Indiana. The fiction editor of Zone 3 Magazine, he has had 
stories published in many literary venues, including The Long Story, 
Cutbank, California Quarterly, and Carolina Quarterly. He currently 
teaches at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, 
where he lives with his wife Jill and his children Ted and Hannah.



What people are saying about this book

"You find out who you are in times of crisis. Almost always the 
discovery is not what you expected. The Baker's Boy, like much of 
Joseph Conrad's work, is about the pain of such revelation and its 
continuing effect on one's life. A strong and haunting debut novel by 
a fine writer."—Rick DeMarinis, author of The Year of the Zinc Penny

"A gripping novel that held my interest and admiration from beginning 
to end."—Richard Selzer, author of Letters to a Young Doctor

"An electric novel that compares to great expatriate novels like 
Graham Greene's The Quiet American."—David Bradley, author of 
The Chaneysville Incident