Ashes to Ashes

Summary

When the ashes from an Ash Wednesday service in the prairie town of Andwhen, Minnesota, refuse to wash off, members of a small congregation are left wondering whether they’ve been blessed or cursed. For Basil—a “gentle giant” of a teen reeling from a farming accident that shattered his family and haunted by his mother’s decade-long confinement in a state mental hospital—the ashes become a sign. He embarks on a secret ritual of fasting and prayer, seeking meaning in his unraveling world.

Meanwhile, Basil and his friends, Lukas and Morgan (who self-identify as “a gay, a goth, and a giant”), stumble upon what may be the centuries-old remains of a Viking explorer in a local meadow, a find that brings its own complications, as folk history clashes with the agendas of online racists. As Basil’s relentless fasting warps his grip on reality, the danger he poses to himself and his family escalates.

Blending the fragments of a Norse saga with a finely observed portrait of rural Midwestern life at the start of the pandemic, Thomas Maltman delivers a novel of narrative daring and profound empathy—his most inventive and compassionate work yet.

“Far and away the best novel I’ve read this year. Compassionate and lyrically written, it’s a story about mysteries, those of the past and the present, as well as the eternal mysteries of the human heart. I fell in love with this book from the very first page. I guarantee you will too.”—William Kent Krueger, author of This Tender Land