Austin Ratner, author of In the Land of the Living, on tour August/September 2013

Isidore’s sons, Leo and Mack, haunted by the mythic, epic proportions of their father’s heroics and the tragic events that marked their early lives, have alternately relied upon and disappointed one another since the day Mack was born.  For Leo, who is angry at the world but angrier at himself, the burden of the past shapes his future: sexual awakening, first love, and restless attempts to live up to his father’s ideals.  Just when Leo reaches a crossroads between potential self-destruction and new freedom, Mack invites him on a road trip from Los Angeles to Cleveland. As the brothers make their way east, and towards understanding, their battles and reconciliations illuminate the power of family to both destroy and empower-and the price and rewards of independence.  Part family saga, part coming-of-age story, In the Land of the Living is a kinetic, fresh, bawdy yet earnest shot to the heart of a novel about coping with death, and figuring out how and why to live.

“[Leo Auberon] has the essential elements of a great Salinger-esque hero—bright, precocious, haunted by family.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Ratner casts Auberon’s struggle in mythic terms, mixing Isaac Babel with Chaucerian adventure as he makes his way into the gentrified world of American success.”—Paul Wilner, San Francisco Chronicle

“In Ratner’s novel, mythology is often a compelling but shackling inheritance…Part rumination, part fairy tale, and part road narrative, Ratner’s book paints a picture of the terrible weight of history, self-created or otherwise, that presses down on future generations…Ratner challenges his characters to rise to the occasion. Despite a stacked deck, the glimpses stolen are worth the read.” —James Orbesen, Booklist

“Highly impressionistic. In its attention to consciousness above plot, structure and character, the novel has a late-modernist feel.”—Anne Trubek, Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Accomplished and moving…In the Land of the Living pulses with fury and grief…This novel is a study of bereavement and anger and of the complex, shifting seam between them…Between these vivid frenzies are flashbacks that introduce a tender, vulnerable voice. In these, Ratner captures 3-year-old Leo with uncanny precision, and his childhood sorrow is convincing and devastating…Sad and clever, resonant with loss and grief.”—Francesca Segal, Jewish Daily Forward