M. Allen Cunningham
Now in a Special 20th Anniversary Edition
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A remarkable first novel, a feat reminiscent of William Styron's Lie Down in Darkness, likewise published in the author's twenty-sixth year. Not only are the stories of both novels carefully designed,
but every sentence in each one is crafted with care."
--ForeWord Reviews
First novelist Cunningham writes no semiautobiographical coming-of-age story, but a thoroughly researched and accomplished historical novel. Its unusual structure and richly descriptive, evocative language display a mastery that is surprising in a novelistic debut. --Booklist
"With heartfelt characters and stunning descriptions, Cunningham presents a historical glimpse of squalor in the mines that will haunt readers. Highly recommended." --Library Journal (starred review)
One of the finest debut novels I've ever read. ... For a twenty-six-year-old novelist to produce this book ought to be impossible, but you hold the shocking evidence in your hands. --Steve Yarbrough
A beautifully conceived, adroitly executed novel that defies simple categorization … It is wonderful. Don’t miss it. --NewPages.com
It is impossible to read this book without experiencing profound emotional and spiritual modulation.--Square Books (Oxford, MS)
Nowhere is the theme of personal redemption and the hard-won understandings that precede it more powerfully drawn than in M. Allen Cunningham’s riveting debut novel, The Green Age of Asher Witherow…a brilliant story from one of America’s most promising voices.
— ForeWord Reviews
The Green Age of Asher Witherow is a rich, gothic tale of a young soul coming of age during the explosive boom and bust years of an immigrant coal mining town in nineteenth-century California. In this powerful debut, M. Allen Cunningham takes us into a time and place at once gritty and magical, when the future seems filled with promise but where the day’s labor is bone breaking, numbing and always dangerous.
Cunningham reads a shocking section from The Green Age of Asher Witherow, KPFA Radio Berkeley, 2005:
Cunningham on Memphis Public Radio, 2004:
Nortonville, California - Illustration by Nathan Shields
PRAISE for
The Green Age of Asher Witherow
*An American Booksellers Association #1 Indie Next Pick*
*Finalist for the IndieNext Book of the Year Award with Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Philip Roth's The Plot Against America*
*A USA Today Novel to Watch*
*A "Best Book of the West" - The Salt Lake Tribune*
*A Contra Costa Times Book Club selection, 2005*
*A Promising Debut in PAGES Magazine, Fall 2004*
*Listed as a "Regional Classic" by the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association (MPBA)*
The Green Age of Asher Witherow
*An American Booksellers Association #1 Indie Next Pick*
*Finalist for the IndieNext Book of the Year Award with Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Philip Roth's The Plot Against America*
*A USA Today Novel to Watch*
*A "Best Book of the West" - The Salt Lake Tribune*
*A Contra Costa Times Book Club selection, 2005*
*A Promising Debut in PAGES Magazine, Fall 2004*
*Listed as a "Regional Classic" by the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association (MPBA)*
"The Green Age of Asher Witherow is one of the finest [novels] I have ever read; at the word level it is pure poetry, but the characters and plot are fascinating and surprising. Set in the 1800s, it tells the story of a boy growing up in a Welsh coal mining town in California. But it is about everything from faith to the dark mysteries of the natural world. At Fireside Books, where I work, we have made it a mission to tell readers about this novel, and in our small town he is a bestseller. But I wish that were the case everywhere."--Eowyn Ivey, author of The Snow Child, quoted in The List (UK)
"In 2004, this was a debut novel put out by a brand new publisher, Unbridled Books, and seven years later, the images still haunt me. It's a coming-of-age story set in a mining town in 19th century Northern California. Eight-year-old Asher Witherow, who works in the mines, witnesses a horrific accident that molds his life from that day forward. Cunningham's prose is perfect—he writes dialogue and sentences that beg to be read aloud. There are elements of mysticism, glimpses into the grim reality of poverty, a strange romance and a sense that, while one is capable of recovering from tragedy, the resulting scars often change the way we perceive the world forever."--Gayle Shanks, Changing Hands Bookstore (AZ)
"Classic ... a story of such powerful magic, sorrow, disaster, and illumination that it is impossible to read this book without experiencing profound emotional and spiritual modulation ... an astounding display of artistic talent, written in a poetic prose style that manages to be both dreamy and realistic ... Cunningham saturates his story with coal and limestone, darkness and starlight, echoes of Emerson, Christ, and India. He tackles the meaning of suffering and death, and the true nature of what it means to be alive. This is the debut of a fully formed, timeless American writer."--Bookseller recommendation, Square Books, (Oxford MS)
"This deliciously dark, emotional debut novel by M. Allen Cunningham swept me off my feet. ... I was absolutely hypnotized by the character portrayals here, with writing so rich and haunting that the novel is still begging me for a second reading. The Green Age of Asher Witherow is one of the best contemporary novels I have read to date, and I highly recommend it to readers looking for a fresh, surprising, daring new voice in fiction."--Nancy Scheemaker, Northshire Bookstore (NY)
"A fabulous debut novel...captures the spirit and legends of the time and place. These were harsh times, and this facet of California history is not well-known. This beautiful novel will remedy that."--Catherine Jordan, Orinda Books (Indie Next Citation)
"A novel that is disturbingly convincing, a story too terrible to continue reading but too compelling to lay down... what sustains the reader's interest is the horror of the mine work balanced by the purity of the style, a writing unpolluted by careless word choice, emotional flourishes or manipulative cliches... Cunningham's novel haunts because it so convincingly depicts a work life no man is fitted for but that many must endure."--The Salt Lake Tribune
"First novelist Cunningham writes no semiautobiographical coming-of-age story, but a thoroughly researched and accomplished historical novel. Its unusual structure and richly descriptive, evocative language display a mastery that is surprising in a novelistic debut. Although the plot follows Asher's early life in a largely chronological manner, the book's five sections ("Earth," "Blood," "Bone," "Ash," "Earth") define his life episodically and describe three disastrous events in his first 20 years. The narrator's voice-- wry, compassionate, and detached--examines, reviews, and interprets the actions and emotions of his invincibly innocent younger self. Memorable characters people the Nortonville, California, community, contributing texture and weight to the story. Most impressively, Cunningham depicts the rigors of life in a frontier mining town--especially the physical hardships--and the fragility of humans living in harsh conditions. The darkness of events and the elegance in structure and language will make this book satisfying to readers who enjoyed such books as Robert Morgan's Gap Creek (1999) and Annie Dillard's The Living (1992)."--Booklist
"It's a rare thing for writers twice the age of M. Allen Cunningham to evoke so deftly the long-vanished landscape of 19th-century America, but few readers will believe a 26-year-old penned this wise and transporting debut."--Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"Gritty... Cunningham does a superb job of capturing the grim rhythm of life in the mines, balancing that material with fine childhood character studies... the beauty of Cunningham's naturalistic prose and the strong characterization of young Asher Witherow make this a worthwhile debut from a noteworthy new author."--Publisher's Weekly
"With heartfelt characters and stunning descriptions, Cunningham presents a historical glimpse of squalor in the mines that will haunt readers. Highly recommended."--Library Journal (starred review)
"The early buzz on this debut novel serves up terms like: 'poetic intensity'; 'strikingly beautiful prose style'; 'unerring instinct for storytelling'; 'a startling accomplishment'; and 'lushly talented'. I will state emphatically that Mr. Cunningham's novel is all that and much more. . . It's impossible to adequately review such excellence. . . This is a literary novel in the finest sense of the word, magnetic and seductive from first word to last. . . a book to be savored, written by a gifted wordsmith. It has my highest recommendation."--Midwest Book Review
"Bucolic setting, poetic prose, and transcendental themes. ... [A] philosophically ambitious and impressively assured first novel."--Bookselling This Week (The American Booksellers Association)
"Rarely does a writer combine a strikingly beautiful prose style with an unerring instinct for storytelling. But this is indeed M. Allen Cunningham's startling accomplishment — in his literary debut, no less. The Green Age of Asher Witherow is an enchanting novel by a lushly talented young writer."--Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain
"The writing in The Green Age of Asher Witherow is beautiful, the details enviable, the landscapes amazing, the characters well-drawn. It's like this guy is 200 years old, he gets it so right. Cunningham is a writer we'll be hearing a lot more from."--Tom Franklin, author of The Tilted World
"The Green Age of Asher Witherow deserves your immediate consideration. An accomplished first novel from a talented new writer...a mix of wild supposition and real-life facts...part legend, part horror story, part Pacific Rim myth, part fact and part metaphor...Cunningham has struck a rich vein of story with this book, and everything points to him being able to write something just as good, or better, next time around."--Santa Cruz Sentinel
"A remarkable first novel, a feat reminiscent of William Styron's Lie Down in Darkness, likewise published in the author's twenty-sixth year. Not only are the stories of both novels carefully designed, but every sentence in each one is crafted with care."--ForeWord Magazine (read full review)
"The Green Age of Asher Witherow is one of the finest debut novels I've ever read. Cunningham writes with poetic intensity, but this is also a book with enormous narrative drive, memorable characters and relentless drama. And while the author is an artist rather than a scholar, he serves up a wealth of fascinating information about the history of the Golden State. For a twenty-six-year-old novelist to produce this book ought to be impossible, but you hold the shocking evidence in your hands."--Steve Yarbrough, author of the PEN/Faulkner Award finalist Prisoners of War
"An amazing first novel, and a refreshing revival of an earlier literary mood."--Rocky Mountain News
"Dark and foreboding, vivid in character, grounded in the geography of northern California, this is an impressive and satisfying debut novel."--San Jose Mercury News
"Cunningham captures the feel of 19th-century California with rich details and memorable characters."--The Oregonian
"A dark, complex tale of superstition, fierce pride, and love."--The Denver Post
"Ten times better than any holiday special...there is no putting it down."--The Daily Mississippian
"Beautifully researched and richly detailed. Cunningham's facility with the language of image and sound casts a spell not unlike Isabel Allende...will undoubtedly take its place in the scope of respected historical novels of early California."--The Clayton Pioneer
"Compelling and artfully told...In a precise but painterly style, [Cunningham] evokes a world both distant and--in the mines where Asher works by day and the fields he roams by night--relentlessly, forbiddingly dark."--Saint Louis Post-Dispatch
"Spins a deceptively simple tale from a language as delicate as lace."--Rain Taxi (read full review)
"From the very first pages I knew that I had something special in my hands...I was absolutely immersed in another time and place. I could not bear to put it down... The Green Age is gritty and magical, fantastic and authentic. It is one of the best books I've read this year."
—Susan Swagler, The Birmingham News
"Shows childhood shining through the darkness with innocence and sincerity...Cunningham brilliantly takes a nightmarish way of life, set under the peak of Mount Diablo, and shines a ray of hope on the landscape."--Mississippi Daily Journal
"Plunges fearlessly into history and the supernatural...emotionally potent and historically convincing. The hard lives of the miners are recreated in impressive and authentic detail, as is the landscape of the Diablo Valley, where the story is set...the bold recreation of an 'exotic' place and time in American history are real achievements."--The Missouri Review
"In this mesmerizing first novel by a gifted young writer, the drama of California’s rich immigrant history and the freshness and wonder of childhood combine with darker elements of legend, magic and mystery ... In breathtaking language that contrasts the striking landscape of California's Diablo Valley with the harsh details of life in an 1870s coal-mining boom town, M. Allen Cunningham takes us to an extraordinary time and place. It is a time when the brutal hardships of daily life are leavened by a sense of miraculous change just around the corner. It is a place of sensual, almost supernatural beauty, peopled with remarkable characters. ... Impeccably imagined, sensitive and real in its portrayal of a young boy confronting unanswerable questions with grace and strength, The Green Age of Asher Witherow ... convincingly shatters the equation of childhood and innocence."--BookBrowse, Your Guide to Exceptional Books
“[A] superb lyrical novel… your reading pleasures will most certainly be complex and plentiful…a beautifully conceived, adroitly executed novel that defies simple categorization…It is wonderful. Don’t miss it.”—Tim Davis, NewPages.com
"In 2004, this was a debut novel put out by a brand new publisher, Unbridled Books, and seven years later, the images still haunt me. It's a coming-of-age story set in a mining town in 19th century Northern California. Eight-year-old Asher Witherow, who works in the mines, witnesses a horrific accident that molds his life from that day forward. Cunningham's prose is perfect—he writes dialogue and sentences that beg to be read aloud. There are elements of mysticism, glimpses into the grim reality of poverty, a strange romance and a sense that, while one is capable of recovering from tragedy, the resulting scars often change the way we perceive the world forever."--Gayle Shanks, Changing Hands Bookstore (AZ)
"Classic ... a story of such powerful magic, sorrow, disaster, and illumination that it is impossible to read this book without experiencing profound emotional and spiritual modulation ... an astounding display of artistic talent, written in a poetic prose style that manages to be both dreamy and realistic ... Cunningham saturates his story with coal and limestone, darkness and starlight, echoes of Emerson, Christ, and India. He tackles the meaning of suffering and death, and the true nature of what it means to be alive. This is the debut of a fully formed, timeless American writer."--Bookseller recommendation, Square Books, (Oxford MS)
"This deliciously dark, emotional debut novel by M. Allen Cunningham swept me off my feet. ... I was absolutely hypnotized by the character portrayals here, with writing so rich and haunting that the novel is still begging me for a second reading. The Green Age of Asher Witherow is one of the best contemporary novels I have read to date, and I highly recommend it to readers looking for a fresh, surprising, daring new voice in fiction."--Nancy Scheemaker, Northshire Bookstore (NY)
"A fabulous debut novel...captures the spirit and legends of the time and place. These were harsh times, and this facet of California history is not well-known. This beautiful novel will remedy that."--Catherine Jordan, Orinda Books (Indie Next Citation)
"A novel that is disturbingly convincing, a story too terrible to continue reading but too compelling to lay down... what sustains the reader's interest is the horror of the mine work balanced by the purity of the style, a writing unpolluted by careless word choice, emotional flourishes or manipulative cliches... Cunningham's novel haunts because it so convincingly depicts a work life no man is fitted for but that many must endure."--The Salt Lake Tribune
"First novelist Cunningham writes no semiautobiographical coming-of-age story, but a thoroughly researched and accomplished historical novel. Its unusual structure and richly descriptive, evocative language display a mastery that is surprising in a novelistic debut. Although the plot follows Asher's early life in a largely chronological manner, the book's five sections ("Earth," "Blood," "Bone," "Ash," "Earth") define his life episodically and describe three disastrous events in his first 20 years. The narrator's voice-- wry, compassionate, and detached--examines, reviews, and interprets the actions and emotions of his invincibly innocent younger self. Memorable characters people the Nortonville, California, community, contributing texture and weight to the story. Most impressively, Cunningham depicts the rigors of life in a frontier mining town--especially the physical hardships--and the fragility of humans living in harsh conditions. The darkness of events and the elegance in structure and language will make this book satisfying to readers who enjoyed such books as Robert Morgan's Gap Creek (1999) and Annie Dillard's The Living (1992)."--Booklist
"It's a rare thing for writers twice the age of M. Allen Cunningham to evoke so deftly the long-vanished landscape of 19th-century America, but few readers will believe a 26-year-old penned this wise and transporting debut."--Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"Gritty... Cunningham does a superb job of capturing the grim rhythm of life in the mines, balancing that material with fine childhood character studies... the beauty of Cunningham's naturalistic prose and the strong characterization of young Asher Witherow make this a worthwhile debut from a noteworthy new author."--Publisher's Weekly
"With heartfelt characters and stunning descriptions, Cunningham presents a historical glimpse of squalor in the mines that will haunt readers. Highly recommended."--Library Journal (starred review)
"The early buzz on this debut novel serves up terms like: 'poetic intensity'; 'strikingly beautiful prose style'; 'unerring instinct for storytelling'; 'a startling accomplishment'; and 'lushly talented'. I will state emphatically that Mr. Cunningham's novel is all that and much more. . . It's impossible to adequately review such excellence. . . This is a literary novel in the finest sense of the word, magnetic and seductive from first word to last. . . a book to be savored, written by a gifted wordsmith. It has my highest recommendation."--Midwest Book Review
"Bucolic setting, poetic prose, and transcendental themes. ... [A] philosophically ambitious and impressively assured first novel."--Bookselling This Week (The American Booksellers Association)
"Rarely does a writer combine a strikingly beautiful prose style with an unerring instinct for storytelling. But this is indeed M. Allen Cunningham's startling accomplishment — in his literary debut, no less. The Green Age of Asher Witherow is an enchanting novel by a lushly talented young writer."--Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain
"The writing in The Green Age of Asher Witherow is beautiful, the details enviable, the landscapes amazing, the characters well-drawn. It's like this guy is 200 years old, he gets it so right. Cunningham is a writer we'll be hearing a lot more from."--Tom Franklin, author of The Tilted World
"The Green Age of Asher Witherow deserves your immediate consideration. An accomplished first novel from a talented new writer...a mix of wild supposition and real-life facts...part legend, part horror story, part Pacific Rim myth, part fact and part metaphor...Cunningham has struck a rich vein of story with this book, and everything points to him being able to write something just as good, or better, next time around."--Santa Cruz Sentinel
"A remarkable first novel, a feat reminiscent of William Styron's Lie Down in Darkness, likewise published in the author's twenty-sixth year. Not only are the stories of both novels carefully designed, but every sentence in each one is crafted with care."--ForeWord Magazine (read full review)
"The Green Age of Asher Witherow is one of the finest debut novels I've ever read. Cunningham writes with poetic intensity, but this is also a book with enormous narrative drive, memorable characters and relentless drama. And while the author is an artist rather than a scholar, he serves up a wealth of fascinating information about the history of the Golden State. For a twenty-six-year-old novelist to produce this book ought to be impossible, but you hold the shocking evidence in your hands."--Steve Yarbrough, author of the PEN/Faulkner Award finalist Prisoners of War
"An amazing first novel, and a refreshing revival of an earlier literary mood."--Rocky Mountain News
"Dark and foreboding, vivid in character, grounded in the geography of northern California, this is an impressive and satisfying debut novel."--San Jose Mercury News
"Cunningham captures the feel of 19th-century California with rich details and memorable characters."--The Oregonian
"A dark, complex tale of superstition, fierce pride, and love."--The Denver Post
"Ten times better than any holiday special...there is no putting it down."--The Daily Mississippian
"Beautifully researched and richly detailed. Cunningham's facility with the language of image and sound casts a spell not unlike Isabel Allende...will undoubtedly take its place in the scope of respected historical novels of early California."--The Clayton Pioneer
"Compelling and artfully told...In a precise but painterly style, [Cunningham] evokes a world both distant and--in the mines where Asher works by day and the fields he roams by night--relentlessly, forbiddingly dark."--Saint Louis Post-Dispatch
"Spins a deceptively simple tale from a language as delicate as lace."--Rain Taxi (read full review)
"From the very first pages I knew that I had something special in my hands...I was absolutely immersed in another time and place. I could not bear to put it down... The Green Age is gritty and magical, fantastic and authentic. It is one of the best books I've read this year."
—Susan Swagler, The Birmingham News
"Shows childhood shining through the darkness with innocence and sincerity...Cunningham brilliantly takes a nightmarish way of life, set under the peak of Mount Diablo, and shines a ray of hope on the landscape."--Mississippi Daily Journal
"Plunges fearlessly into history and the supernatural...emotionally potent and historically convincing. The hard lives of the miners are recreated in impressive and authentic detail, as is the landscape of the Diablo Valley, where the story is set...the bold recreation of an 'exotic' place and time in American history are real achievements."--The Missouri Review
"In this mesmerizing first novel by a gifted young writer, the drama of California’s rich immigrant history and the freshness and wonder of childhood combine with darker elements of legend, magic and mystery ... In breathtaking language that contrasts the striking landscape of California's Diablo Valley with the harsh details of life in an 1870s coal-mining boom town, M. Allen Cunningham takes us to an extraordinary time and place. It is a time when the brutal hardships of daily life are leavened by a sense of miraculous change just around the corner. It is a place of sensual, almost supernatural beauty, peopled with remarkable characters. ... Impeccably imagined, sensitive and real in its portrayal of a young boy confronting unanswerable questions with grace and strength, The Green Age of Asher Witherow ... convincingly shatters the equation of childhood and innocence."--BookBrowse, Your Guide to Exceptional Books
“[A] superb lyrical novel… your reading pleasures will most certainly be complex and plentiful…a beautifully conceived, adroitly executed novel that defies simple categorization…It is wonderful. Don’t miss it.”—Tim Davis, NewPages.com