Guggenheim Fellow and Pushcart Prize-winning author Brandon Hobson's sixth book came out in October. Hobson is an associate professor of creative writing at New Mexico State University.
"The Devil is a Southpaw" is a novel within a novel, set at juvenile detention facility in Oklahoma in 1988. The story is told partly from the perspective of an unreliable narrator who received the book from a long-lost friend. The friend, living in the woods, writes about his childhood rival when were locked up together at an Oklahoma juvenile facility.
"I was interested in writing about a novel using art, my drawings and paintings, in a story about the lingering trauma of juvenile incarceration but also by using the art as a narrative device," Hobson said. "My hope is that this novel reflects important themes of trauma from incarceration, mental health, the envy of artists and forgiveness, and creates a novel in an artful and compelling way."
His previous novel, "Where the Dead Sit Talking," was a 2018 finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the Reading the West Award, and longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award, among other distinctions. His short stories have won a Pushcart Prize and have appeared in "The Best American Short Stories," "McSweeney's, Conjunctions," "American Short Fiction" and elsewhere.
A 2022 Guggenheim Fellow as well as a recipient of a residency fellowship from the UCROSS Foundation, Hobson is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation Tribe in Oklahoma and mentors at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe.
"I spent time working in a juvenile facility with incarcerated youth," Hobson said. "I know that there's a lingering trauma from being locked up, and so I wanted to try to convey that in this novel."
"The Devil is a Southpaw" is Hobson's sixth novel. As a writer, he pays attention to language and structure, without being plot heavy. But each novel is more an exploration of open doors and later editing what doesn't fit.
"Every book is its own thing. There's something magical that happens when someone sits down to write – especially fiction – and pretty soon, three hours have passed," Hobson said. "It's a kind of mystical experience."
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