Dodgers

"Dark, edgy and riveting and, for all that, deeply, humanly serious, Dodgers is white knuckles for the mind. I love this book and will closely follow Bill Beverly forever hereafter." - Robert Olen Butler , Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

“Not only is the fast-paced and masterfully plotted Dodgers one of the greatest literary crime novels you will read in your lifetime, Bill Beverley has also created, in the teenage boy, East, one of the most unforgettable and heartbreaking characters ever encountered in American fiction.”- Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff and The Dead All the Time

"Propulsive, brutally honest and yet unexpectedly tender, Dodgers is one of the best debuts I've read. I was absolutely gripped by the voice, the world of East and his brother, and surprised at nearly ever turn. I audibly gasped at the end." - Attica Locke, author of Black Water Rising and Pleasantville

"Reading Dodgers is like having the veil lifted from your eyes: the world is more vivid, more intense, more exquisite, and more terrifying than you ever knew. Bill Beverly is a conjurer, a poet of the dark arts, and his novel is a spell: when he sends his young drug-world protagonist on a deadly errand in the alien landscape east of L.A.—that fat swath of America known to him only by its names and its shapes on maps—it is you who makes the journey, who is the stranger in a strange land, a watcher who now feels the eyes of others wherever you go, and who must pay the devastating tolls of crossing boundaries. Hypnotic, breath-taking, bruising, beautiful, important, true—choose your adjectives, this is a great novel. - Tim Johnston, author of Descent

“In Dodgers, Bill Beverly delivers with honesty and empathy as he takes us into the hope-killing shadow of LA’s street-level drug kingdom. His prose are a perfect match for young East’s life-altering journey; spare, clear-eyed and with the cutting edge of flint. Beverly leads us into the heart of a young man molded by circumstance and, much as Richard Price’s The Whites, gives a view that will change the way you look at the world.” – Susan Crandall, national bestselling author of Whistling Past the Graveyard

"The sentences will snare you, and the story keeps you hooked — a thrilling cross-country journey that takes on the poetry and resonance of myth" – Adam Sternbergh, author of Shovel Ready and Near Enemy

"Bill Beverly’s wild and auspicious debut takes off from page one and never lets up. Dodgers, a kind of modernized and urban take on Theodore Weesner’s The Car Thief, is lightning-quick and world-wise, full of pitch-perfect dialogue and criminal misadventure. Most importantly, it’s a lot of fun." – Tom Cooper, author of The Marauders

"Dodgers transcends genres. Its main character East, is part Kerouac's Sal Paradise, Part Wrights' Bigger Thomas, and even part Salinger's Holden Caulfield. The hero's journey is an American story." – Ernesto Quinonez, author of Bodega Dreams

“Dodgers is a wickedly good amalgamation of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Clockers that stands firmly on its own as a remarkable debut. A Harrowing road trip into the heart of America that will shock you, move you, and leave you marveling at its desolate poetry. A real accomplishment: a book that makes you see the familiar through new eyes. It will stick with me for a long, long time.”
– Richard Lange, author of Angel Baby and This Wicked World

Bill Beverly’s gritty and propulsive debut novel, Dodgers, is more than a riveting read; it is a stunning literary achievement. Our hero, East, a fifteen-year old hit man, drives across America on a deadly mission, from the mean streets of LA to the heart of the heart of the country. East is a character as memorable and as haunting as any I’ve met in contemporary fiction. And he’s not alone in that van, but there is room for one more. So hop in, but strap on your seatbelt and hold on to your hat. The road’s a little bumpy—and more than a little terrifying— up ahead. - John Dufresne author of No Regrets, Coyote

“A terrific novel, urgent, thrilling, and dangerous from start to finish. In East, Mr. Beverly has created a character who stays in the mind after the book is finished, an Odysseus straight out of Compton. His venture into the unknown lands of the American Midwest has a classic, mythic shape and scope. And the writing throughout is lovely, economical and exact. You could read this for the sentences alone.” - Kevin Canty, author of Into the Great Wide Open

"I knew before I'd gone very far into Bill Beverly's superb first novel that I was about to lose some sleep, since putting it down seemed to be beyond me. To say it's a page-turner doesn't do it justice, though it certainly is. It's also much more. His characters are vivid and real, and yes, sometimes they'll break your heart. The world they inhabit--no matter where they may be at a given moment--all but leaps off the page. It's a winner. So is its author." – Steve Yarbrough, author of The Realm of Last Chances and Safe from the Neighbors

“From the moment we encounter East, a mostly silent kid who "didn't look like much," we are initiated into his gaze on the malfunctioning world, a kind of concentrated, exquisite hypervigilance that is both his burden and his gift. It is this quality of attention that makes Dodgers such an intense read -- inescapable, inevitable, impossible to set aside. We can no more turn off East's vision -- and the sense of urgency that comes with it -- than he himself can, and we are along for the ride. The truth-telling and pared-down purity of voice here are reminiscient of Denis Johnson, as if this novel were not written but channelled. This is a beautiful, extraordinary book.” – Wendy Brenner, author of Large Animals in Everyday Life and Phone Calls from the Dead