Marlin Barton

An Alabama teenager returns from a stint in juvenile detention to face the music from friends, family and acquaintances in the latest novel by Marlin Barton, who teaches creative writing at the nation's premier program for juvenile offenders.

Carolyn Haines describes The Cross Garden as "an incredible novel that explores the complex relationship between the past and the present and its impact on two generations of Alabama men, both who took a single misstep that informs the rest of their lives," and Richard Russo calls it "a gripping literary thriller set in a place so vividly rendered that the novel's characters seem to spring directly from its soil."

Signed first editions.