"A man escapes from prison only to find he can’t separate himself from his past. Pineville Trace is a story of a man on the run. Wes Blake renders the tale with great empathy and in language that’s so lyrical it practically lifts from the page. Blake is a writer to watch."

—Lee Martin, author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist The Bright Forever

"Wes Blake’s Pineville Trace is a Pilgrim's Progress through an America of our shared past; at times ardent or breathless, it is a dream book in the form of a road novel, a vision quest about finding a house in the trees. Accompanied by a wise cat, Blake’s protagonist is on the lam after becoming a seeker. Together they persevere, drawing strength from Shawnee visions, other restless wanderers, and the call of a sanctuary up ahead. Pineville Trace is a story of a light in the window with reminiscences of darker water. Ghosts come down the mountain. Blake’s novel shines into the spirit and reveals the struggle of our living in such worldly and spiritual conditions."

—Matthew Haughton, author of Stand in the Stillness of Woods 

"Pineville Trace examines what happens when loneliness becomes habitual. Frank, a once capricious and charismatic southern revival preacher, does what he does best when feeling caged: he leaves, walking away from a minimum-security prison in eastern Kentucky with the only friend he has left—a yard cat named Buffalo. A terse, poignant, and sometimes bitter look at a man’s journey to tether his interior world to a meaningful anchor in the physical one [...], Blake’s debut novel manages to expertly capture that feeling of standing in an empty motel hallway, moving away and toward something, depositing you inside your own private emotional purgatory, the in-between time when you are invisible to everyone except yourself."

—Tina Andry, author of ransom notes

“This was an utterly compelling read.”

—SmokeLong Quarterly

“Pineville Trace explores liminal spaces, “always at the edge of things. The edge between day and night. Between sunset and dusk.” Despite his own certainty that he is a fraud, Frank emerges for the reader as the truest kind of prophet, following a cat named Buffalo and searching for “the old magic.” Blake’s prose also glides along edges: balancing between simple diction and richly figurative imagery. He guides Frank across continents, “ghost-like as the lines… between his freedom and prison,” seeking an answer to that universal question: what ultimately releases a man from his own demons? A haunting debut!”

—Julie Hensley, author of Landfall: A Ring of Stories