Buy a copy of Midwest Book Awards Gold Medalist for Fiction, Red Bricks by Anne Muccino for $17.95Red Bricks, the debut novel by Kansas City writer, Anne Muccino, is set in the desert southwest circa 1930. JT Swain is just seventeen when he loses everything that matters to him, his father and the ranch he grew up on. The young man sets out on horseback to find the connectedness suddenly gone from his life. He meets Dalia Jackson, the fifteen-year-old, half-Nahua Indian, half-white daughter of a wealthy New Mexico rancher, and quickly discovers that the rebellious young woman sees her place in the world as equal to that of any man. Strangely drawn to Dalia, when JT learns that she has disappeared, he sets out to find her, challenging the law when he must, tracking her into the barrios of Juárez, Mexico, where he witnesses firsthand the cruelty of human trafficking.
Here’s what reviewers are saying—
“Red Bricks by Anne Muccino offers no easy outs, instead it asks us to contemplate the paradoxical nature of loss and redemption, of the razor’s edge between life and death. Muccino’s stunning debut explores both what it means to be harmed beyond recognition and what it means, finally, to recognize one’s own strength. This is a riveting and deeply moving novel, one of the best I’ve read in a long while. Anne Muccino is a talent to be reckoned with.” —Abigail Dewitt, author of News of Our Loved Ones.
“Anne Muccino’s debut novel is a literary gem. It is rich in detail and remarkably authentic. Catch up on your sleep. The time and place in Red Bricks are so vivid, with characters so real, so poignant, you will not want to put this book down. This is a beautiful, moving, absorbing experience, destined to become a classic.”—Dawn Shamp, author of On Account of Conspicuous Women.
Anne Muccino’s short stories, essays and poems have been published in Kansas City Voices, Literary Laundry, Rusty Truck, Number One Magazine, Work Stew, Lost Lake Folk Opera and others.