In this episode 184, guest hosted by Paul Kurzeja, we visit with Aaron Gwyn, author of All God’s Children, an enthralling novel set on the frontier of Texas in the period before the Civil War.

The New York Times says “Gwyn’s novel is a powerful depiction of the rough realities of frontier life, of the vicious influence of racism in a place where ‘men who didn’t dare look at you in daylight might burn you alive come sundown.’”

Booklist says that “Readers will relish these unforgettable characters and this expansive view of Texas’ wild ride to joining the Union” and Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal, observes that “Gwyn has couched his meanings within a swift and skillful western, which allows them to unfold with devastating power. [ . . . ] The very people who founded the American West, this bracing novel suggests, were those most desperate to be independent from it.”