From award-winning author James Wade comes Narrow the Road, a literary coming of age novel of epic proportions.
Only fourteen-years-old, William Carter has been forced to grow up quickly during the Great Depression, living on his family’s failing cotton farm in Shawnee Prairie, Texas. The bank is threatening to auction off his family home, his mother has fallen sick with an illness the local doctor can’t diagnose, and no one has heard from his war-hero father in months.
His options are waning when William receives a mysterious letter suggesting his father is living with another woman in an adjacent county. Together with his oddball best friend Ollie—whose family owns the local mortuary—William aims to find his father and bring him back to Shawnee Prairie to set things right.
Thus begins a gothic odyssey which takes the two friends through some of the country’s most uncharted, untamed land. Along the way they encounter nefarious backwoods characters of every order, and even run afoul of the legendary Bonnie and Clyde. And the danger is doubled when the boys agree to take on a medicine show runaway named Hannah. This elicits the ire of the show’s owner, Doctor Downtain, and as the three race to uncover clues that lead to William’s father, Downtain is closing in on them—ready to make good on his violent reputation.
With the clock ticking, William must decide where his loyalties lie and how far he’s willing to go to save the people he loves. Narrow the Road is a challenge to the traditional coming-of-age novel, exploring aspects of faith, morality, and socioeconomics, and asking the question: What happens when you have to be your own savior?