JESSE GOOLSBY
Finalist for INDIES Book of the Year (Fiction) & Longlisted for the Reading the West Book Awards (Fiction: War & Military)
"Gorgeous writing, necessary witness." - LitHub
"Entirely original and intriguing." - CALEB CAGE, author of Desert Mementos
"This collection should wake us up; it has the power to change us." - DAN O'BRIEN, author of War Reporter & The Body of an American
Winner of the Florida Book Award for Fiction & Longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize
"Impressive." - Esquire
"Not only is Jesse Goolsby one of the very rare authors who writes with authoritative insight into the warfare of the 21st century, he does so with an even deeper insight into the universal human condition. Goolsby’s real subject is the profound yearning for connection, for identity, that drives us all. - ROBERT OLEN BUTLER, Pulitzer Prize-winner
ABOUT
Jesse Goolsby is the author of the collection Acceleration Hours (University of Nevada Press) and the novel I’d Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), winner of the Florida Book Award for Fiction and long-listed for the Flaherty-Duncan First Novel Prize. His fiction and essays have appeared widely, including The Literary Review, Epoch, TriQuarterly, Narrative Magazine, Salon, Florida Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Pleiades. He is the recipient of the Richard Bausch Short Story Prize, the John Gardner Memorial Award in Fiction, and fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences. He serves as Acquisitions Editor for the literary journal War, Literature & the Arts.
A retired US Air Force officer, Goolsby earned an English degree from the United States Air Force Academy, a Master's degree in English from the University of Tennessee, and a PhD in English and Creative Writing from Florida State University. He was raised in Chester, California, and now lives in San Antonio, Texas.
A FEW FAVORITES
ACCELERATION HOURS
From the author of the critically-acclaimed novel, I’d Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them, Jesse Goolsby’s Acceleration Hours is a haunting collection of narratives about families, life, and loss during America’s twenty-first-century forever wars.
Set across the mountain west of the United States, these fierce, original, and compelling stories illuminate the personal search for human connection and intimacy. From a stepfather’s grief to an AWOL soldier and her journey of reconciliation to a meditation on children, violence, and hope, Acceleration Hours is an intense and necessary portrayal of the many voices living in a time of perpetual war.
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I'D WALK WITH MY FRIENDS IF I COULD FIND THEM
In this powerful debut novel, three American soldiers haunted by their actions in Afghanistan search for absolution in family and civilian life.
This richly textured novel telescopes through time to track these unforgettable characters from childhood to parenthood, from redwood forests to open desert roads to the streets of Kabul. Throughout, Jesse Goolsby tackles questions we all face: What is the price of forgiveness? Where can we turn for companionship and understanding? Most of all, what responsibility do we bear toward others: friends, parents, lovers, children, strangers halfway across the world? When violence threatens to sever the links between us, we must strive for connection — at any cost.
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