A Great Book Club Read
Under the Moon in Illinois
by Kipling Knox
Middling, IL is struggling under the malaise that affects so many small towns in the 21st century. Cataclysmic weather, declining family farms, inept government, corrupt churches, and young people in crisis. When the ghosts of former residents mobilize to help the living, they find their best intentions may have grave consequences. Now a few townspeople—particularly one brave woman journalist—have to rise to the challenge and ensure a future for their beleaguered town.
Through a series of interconnected stories, this satirical novel is at times dark, but ultimately hopeful. Under the Moon in Illinois is a great book club read—literary, unconventional, and massively entertaining.
Winner of the Chris O'Malley Prize in Fiction, the Wild Women Award from Tulip Tree, and two-time finalist for the Tobias Wolff Award. Stories from this collection have been published or recognized by the Madison Review, Narrative Magazine, the TulipTree Review, the Bellingham Review, and the Whitefish Review. Published by Prairie State Press.
Booksellers can order through Ingram, with the ISBN 979-8-9871656-0-7.
PRAISE FOR UNDER THE MOON IN ILLINOIS...
“These concentrated gems of fiction take you to a landscape that might feel, at first, like small-town America—cornfields and chickens, sanctimonious pastors and protective mothers, high school kids and dating hijinks. It feels normal—but preternaturally normal, because this is Kipling Knox country, aka Middling, IL, and the crust is thin. Anywhere you step, you might break through into a deeper reality that can be frightening. But these are not horror stories. What haunts you in Middling is the emotional intensity that arises from loss and longing, from the knowledge that nothing lasts and nothing goes away.”
- author and lecturer Tamim Ansary
"These interconnected stories, tied to a specific locale, fit in the tradition established by Poe, Hawthorne, and Washington Irving. Not just a compelling collection of ghost stories, this book challenges the reader to understand an original take on the afterlife. The ghost world of Middling has an important ethical dimension, with rules and consequences. This spirit world visibly manifests the history of loss, in America, stretching back through ruined farms and all the animal species—mastodons, passenger pigeons—we have driven to extinction. The small picture—of Middling—is also the large picture.” - author, critic, and editor Elaine Palencia
"This collection of stories twisted my imagination in unexpected ways, creating lasting impressions of a vivid world. Kipling paints a canvas of characters you might recognize from next door. But beware: these are not ordinary people. The characters of this world look into their souls and beg the reader to ask why we are here and what our purpose should be. I love a good ghost story, and these tales did not disappoint!"
- Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto
