Out Now: And It Will Be a Beautiful Life
Released in June 2021 by The Story Plant / Fiction Studio Books, And It Will Be a Beautiful Life is the story of Max Wendt, a pipeline inspector, and his rapidly changing family.
It is a 2022 High Plains Book Award fiction finalist, and it was also a finalist in the 2022 Best Book Awards and the 2022 International Book Awards, both of those honors in the category of literary fiction.
Praise for And It Will Be a Beautiful Life
“Among Craig Lancaster’s gifts, I’ve come to appreciate most his ability to take the mundane and elevate it to the level of art; how he can spin quotidian threads into such colorful, surprising patterns. ... You’ve really got to read this book.”—ALLEN MORRIS JONES, author of Sweeney on the Rocks and A Bloom of Bones
“The adventures of Max Wendt, criss-crossing the country and his life, goaded on by a strange new friend, are heartbreaking, funny, well-written and entirely human.”—JAMIE HARRISON, author of The Center of Everything and The Widow Nash
"Lancaster's best yet."—GWEN FLORIO, author of The Truth of It All
It is a 2022 High Plains Book Award fiction finalist, and it was also a finalist in the 2022 Best Book Awards and the 2022 International Book Awards, both of those honors in the category of literary fiction.
Praise for And It Will Be a Beautiful Life
“Among Craig Lancaster’s gifts, I’ve come to appreciate most his ability to take the mundane and elevate it to the level of art; how he can spin quotidian threads into such colorful, surprising patterns. ... You’ve really got to read this book.”—ALLEN MORRIS JONES, author of Sweeney on the Rocks and A Bloom of Bones
“The adventures of Max Wendt, criss-crossing the country and his life, goaded on by a strange new friend, are heartbreaking, funny, well-written and entirely human.”—JAMIE HARRISON, author of The Center of Everything and The Widow Nash
"Lancaster's best yet."—GWEN FLORIO, author of The Truth of It All
Coming in May 2023: Dreaming Northward
From acclaimed author Craig Lancaster comes a story of family violence, dysfunction, and, perhaps, redemption, told across four timelines.
More than a decade into the 21st century, Nate Ray is down and in the final throes before he’s out for good. He has burned through jobs and the goodwill of others, including his son, Brandon. When Nate’s dad, Ronnie, summons him for a trip from Texas to Montana to bury Ronnie’s sister, Nate’s self-destruction is put on hold but new and long-buried issues arise.
Forty years earlier, in Wyoming, Electra Ray plots an escape to an uncertain future, for herself and her five-year-old son. A new friend awaits on the other end, three states away, but first Electra must break cleanly away from the bonds of a neglectful present.
In 2002, recent high school graduate Cherie Bowden is helping her mother settle her grandma’s estate in Billings, Montana, and is already deferring her own dreams. She comes across information that makes her question everything she thinks she knows about the people she comes from.
And in early 1950s Montana, Ronnie Ray, sixteen years old, estranged from the father he barely knows, and on the run from an abusive home life, reaches faithfully toward a connection.
More than a decade into the 21st century, Nate Ray is down and in the final throes before he’s out for good. He has burned through jobs and the goodwill of others, including his son, Brandon. When Nate’s dad, Ronnie, summons him for a trip from Texas to Montana to bury Ronnie’s sister, Nate’s self-destruction is put on hold but new and long-buried issues arise.
Forty years earlier, in Wyoming, Electra Ray plots an escape to an uncertain future, for herself and her five-year-old son. A new friend awaits on the other end, three states away, but first Electra must break cleanly away from the bonds of a neglectful present.
In 2002, recent high school graduate Cherie Bowden is helping her mother settle her grandma’s estate in Billings, Montana, and is already deferring her own dreams. She comes across information that makes her question everything she thinks she knows about the people she comes from.
And in early 1950s Montana, Ronnie Ray, sixteen years old, estranged from the father he barely knows, and on the run from an abusive home life, reaches faithfully toward a connection.