Publisher's Synopsis
20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION In this stunning, three-act tragedy-the first novel in Cates's Homecoming Trilogy-Jack Dempsey Cliff drives through the night in search of the father he never knew. He's in Kodiak, Alaska, a frontier town, where the soul of his culture is exposed and running wild in the street. What Jack finally finds is the courage to stand when it's time to stand, act when it's time to act. During one long night and into the dawn, Jack discovers what he loves, and in that love, his redemption.
"Outside Jack's cab, lives may be troubled or constricted, sad or crazed or injudicious--blighted by the 'horror of lost hopes'--but they are terribly moving and entirely convincing....This is a fine..work of fiction by a serious and very gifted writer." --The New York Times Book Review
"A multilayered odyssey, it is a profound exploration of life's uncertainty and the nature of spiritual hunger . . ." -- Chicago Sun-Times
"David Cates' first novel, once read, becomes even more mysterious and haunting upon contemplation. The riddle of fate is beautifully posed." -- The Los Angeles Times
"Hunger in America is a golden story, drenched with gray pathos, steeped in the real world, primed to touch the reader's heart and mind-" -- Kinesis
"Cates could have taken a minimalist's bored mower to this bleak, alcoholic landscape: instead, he's cultivated it with a good heart and great imagination. The blooms he raises are full and improbable, as beautiful as they are painful to watch. In giving rise to a real writer, May 30, 1983 turns out to have been a lucky day." -- Philadelphia Inquirer
"Cates's first novel is solid proof that the sparest things can also be the richest... (He's) taken big risks, both structural and emotional, and has succeeded gloriously, with a plaintive but eloquent song to the abundant impossibilities of connecting despite the tight net of relationships that catches us all." -- Publishers Weekly
"David Cates provides an antic roll call of the wanderers and loopy dreamers who have washed up in this bleak spot seeing release from the pain they left at home. Some have come to settle old scores. Some are just stuck here, where America ends. Whatever they had yearned to find, most-like Bogart's Rick Blaine-were misinformed." -- Boston Globe
"This is big shouldered prose. It steams and geysers. It avalanches and floats on air and water. It bites and munches and goes to suspension. It's the calling card of a new American writer." --Robert Olmstead, author of Coal Black Horse
"For one long, funny, haunting night (Jack Dempsey Cliff) drives his cab through Kodiak, Alaska, picking up doomed passengers and searching for the ghost of his father-the father who deserted him. The meter's running. Cliff's stomach growls. So does his soul." --Isthmus
"At the heart of Hunger in America are questions about our desire to understand ourselves and our pursuit of self-fulfillment. It is, most of all, about happiness, this intangible emotion that we spend our lives searching for-no matter how elusive." --Orange County Register
"Readers will follow a writer like Cates anywhere he takes them." --Anchorage Daily News
"Hunger in America . . is swift, funny, beautiful, and ultimately savage. David Cates is the real thing, not a false note in his song." --William Kittredge
