August

August s first, fully accessible memory was of the barn. Riding on his father s shoulders down the hill behind the house, he could see the building ahead of them, its peaked roof and the long, low addition off to the side, faded red with white trim. His father ducking under the door so he wouldn t hit his head, the dull murmur of the milk pump, the cows chewing in the stanchions. Maybe five or six, he was too old to be riding on his father s shoulders, and he didn t want to be there. As soon as he could, he squirmed down and climbed to the haymow. The rungs of the ladder were almost too far spaced, but his father was there at his back in case he slipped.

In the haymow, dusty and dark and warm, his father broke up two bales to make a soft pile, and they had several wrestling matches during which August got repeatedly tossed into the loose hay, a situation he loved more than just about anything. After a time they descended the ladder, and August s father removed and sanitized the milkers while August went around patting each Holstein on the nose. When the milking was done, August helped his father dip the teats of several cows until August dropped the applicator and spilled the iodine solution and his father sat him in the milk room with a mason jar filled fresh from the refrigerator vat to keep him occupied while he finished the chores alone. The milk was full-fat, thick and heavy, cold enough to fog the glass. There was the smell of the cows and straw. The milk room was whitewashed, cobwebs in the old wooden crossbeams, the stainless vat spotless and gleaming. He held the mason jar with both hands, drinking, the milk running down his chin.

Eventually his father came and scooped him up. The cows had been put out to pasture, and the barn was silent. He rode on his father s shoulders back to the house, tired and not protesting now. His mother was at the kitchen table, a dim gray haze of smoke above her head. She had books scattered around her, glasses

Callan Wink has been awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Arts and Stanford University, where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow. His stories and essays appear widely, including in The New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope All–Story, Playboy,  Men’s Journal and The Best American Short Stories anthology. His first book, Dog Run Moon, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and received a PEN/Hemingway Award Honorable Mention. He lives in Livingston, Montana, where he is a fly-fishing guide on the Yellowstone River.

In this tightly controlled yet highly unpredictable novel we discover what it is like to come of age in a part of America that is always changing, always the same. The Guardian 

Told with all the economy, clarity of character, and lively prose that mark [Callan] Wink s short stories, this is writing that would tell just as well around the campfire as it does on the page. The Millions 

Like a current Jim Harrison, Wink makes irresistible drama out of an individual s search for identity in landscapes that are by turns romantic and limiting. Publishers Weekly (starred review) 

August is an exceptional coming-of-age story. Callan Wink is too wise and empathetic a writer to ever allow his readers easy judgments as we follow his memorable young protagonist on his precarious way through adolescence. An outstanding debut novel and worthy follow-up to Wink s widely praised collection of stories. Ron Rash, New York Times bestselling author of The Risen and Serena
 
Callan Wink s characters are as real and vivid as if they d stepped into your living room, uninvited, to tell their stories. His style is as clear, precise, and starkly poetic as the young Hemingway s, but with a more droll sense of humor. This book is simply super a deft, beautiful, deeply engaging read. Brad Watson, author of Miss Jane
 
August is the rural coming-of-age that so many of us experience but so rarely see in print. Callan Wink has a voice like Annie Proulx s; he lands every detail with concrete authenticity and every emotional moment with tangible feeling. Rae DelBianco, author of 2019 Prix Littéraire Lucien-Barrière winner Rough Animals

August is alive. I haven t connected with a character so intensely and sometimes uncomfortably since I first read Jim Harrison s early novels almost thirty years ago. Wink s prose has Harrison