Eli Singer, a rancher and poet in remote Eastern Montana, sees his life upended when a long-buried corpse—which turns out to be a murder victim from Eli's childhood—erodes out of a hillside on his property. This discovery forces Eli to turn inward to revisit the tragic events in his past that led to a life-changing moment of violence, while at the same time he must reach outside himself toward Chloe, a literary agent from New York whom he is falling in love with. In the tradition of such classic western writers as Thomas McGuane, James Lee Burke, Ivan Doig and Jim Harrison, A Bloom of Bones is a poignant and moving exploration of family, community, and the echoing ramifications of violence across generations, as well as a genre-subverting literary mystery.

 

Allen Morris Jones is author of an acclaimed novel, Last Year’s River (Houghton Mifflin), which was chosen as as a Barnes and Noble Discover pick, a highly influential consideration of the ethics of hunting, A Quiet Place of Violence, and co-editor of The Best of Montana’s Short Fiction. He is currently editor-in-chief of Big Sky Journal, and runs his own press, Bangtail Press. He has appeared on “PBS NewsHour” as a guest essayist, and seen rave reviews of his work appear on the Today Show and in the LA Times, People magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and many others. He lives in Montana with his wife and young son.