“In this propulsive tale of the magic lurking inside our mortality, Mark Mustian has conjured a surreal hero. Here is a translucent rendering of boyhood and aberration, of the fault lines of race and the frailty of religion. In sentences that are equally primal and poetic, Mustian transports us through the shacks, camps, circuses, and back alleys of the Depression-era South, asking a still-resonant question: what's the price of belonging in a society that's already broken?”

–Katy Simpson Smith, author of “The Everlasting,” for “Boy With Wings”

“Novelist Mustian writes relentlessly, telling [Ahmet’s] haunting story in brief bursts of luminous yet entirely unsentimental prose and reminding us that, when life gets bloody, we had better watch out for our own humanity.”

—Library Journal (Starred Review), for “The Gendarme”

“Every decade or so, I find a novel that I sense, just by reading the basic description, will become unforgettable; after reading only 20 pages of ‘The Gendarme,’ my impression was confirmed with great force. For this decade, and this reader, ‘The Gendarme’ is that extraordinary, unforgettable novel…”

—BookPage, for “The Gendarme”

“A well-plotted, well-told story with a powerful, moving message…”

—Baton Rouge Advocate, for “The Gendarme”

“A brilliantly conceived and carefully crafted novel…”

—Southern Literary Review, for “The Gendarme”

“This is a harrowing and truly important novel by a splendid American writer.”

—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize winning author of “Hell and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain,” for “The Gendarme”