Ruin by S.M. Browning
Ruin by S.M. Browning
S.M. Browning
Award-winning Debut Novel. The first thirty pages of Ruin won the Anne Hopewell Selby Award as the author's undergraduate thesis. Includes a short story from an upcoming release and author bio.
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A broken bone leads north.
Chicago fulfills none of Irving Clary’s desires. City smog stifles any hope for an off-the-grid existence and, with it, his marriage. Relocation to Wisconsin’s northwoods is the final effort a desperate man employs to revitalize a wife’s stagnant love and turn from villain to hero in the eyes of his son.
The simpler means afforded with this change in lifestyle more than repairs these labored relationships. A cabin is constructed in a dried riverbed with the help of a hermit.
Forty years prior to Clary’s story, Dole Walker lives a parallel dream. Caught between his love for the river and his woman, Dole is given an ultimatum which eventually leaves him with neither. Heavy alcohol abuse and retreat from society strip away layers of Dole’s sanity. He witnesses his dream die and the river evaporate. Only through a stray dog and newfound hobby is he able to re-establish his will to live, which leads him to Irving Clary.
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Amber Stone, Deputy Director, UNICEF USA
Goodreads ReviewI recently finished Ruin by S.M. Browning and highly recommend it! The central theme is around finding peace through harmony with nature and is full of deep life insights. The author has a unique writing style that says more with less. This novel has it all, a skillfully-crafted work of art and passion with a strong message for such a time as this.
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Megan Wells, MFA, CLC, National Award-winning Storyteller
It is a masculine story without being crass - I truly appreciated [Browning's] restraint - allowing us into the male inner life without entering the objectification of the feminine.I enjoyed the dimensionality of Clary and Dole. I came to love Land's Edge and felt it in full - can "see" it in my mind now - can feel the townsfolk in my heart.
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D.J. Elwell
The first word that comes to me regarding [Browning’s] style is laconic and that's good. [He] manage[s] to say a lot in a small space and I like that.[Browning’s] spare phrasing sets the mood and tone for [his] work. William Zinsser wrote, ‘Clutter is the disease of American writing. We [are] strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon. I believe that is a disease to which [Browning has] a strong immunity.