Ron Hansen has won an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters for his rich writing and poetic style. Atticus begins in the vein of a contemporary western. As it unfolds, it includes an intriguing murder mystery and a dramatic parable of the prodigal son. For years, prosperous Colorado rancher Atticus Cody has tried to understand his rootless son, Scott, who is now living a marginal life in Mexico. When he learns that Scott is dead, apparently by suicide, Atticus travels to Mexico to claim the body. Instead, he discovers evidence of murder and a trail of clues that will lead him to a strange and wonderful epiphany. Suspense and conflict, love and forgiveness combine in this deft story of Atticus’ search for his son. Each character stands out, sharply etched, against the bright Mexican landscape.

One of the most highly acclaimed and best-selling novels of 1991, Mariette in Ecstasy inspires even the most discriminating listener to some degree of reverence. This captivating story of faith and divine madness may move you to examine your own belief system. Since the tender age of four, Mariette Baptiste has had visions of her Savior. Now, at 17, she is entering the convent to dedicate her life to Him. At first, she is welcomed and admired. Then she begins to bleed from stigmata, and the villagers regard her as a saint. Emotions from the other Sisters of the Crucifixion range from admiration, to jealousy, to hatred. Readers will be stunned by the conclusion to Mariette’s journey of faith. Recipient of an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Ron Hansen writes sensuous and compelling prose that is pure pleasure to listen to. Barbara Caruso’s expressive voice beautifully conveys the rhythms reminiscent of haiku that the author so skillfully intersperses throughout.

Ron Hansen has long been a master of the short form. His stories have been called ‘beautifully crafted’ (The New York Times), ‘unforgettable’ (San Francisco Chronicle), and ‘diverse and expansive’ (The Washington Post). Ranging over subjects as diverse as Oscar Wilde, murder, dementia, and romance, this collection shows Ron Hansen at his storytelling best. Most of these pieces are set in the present with the balance set in the historical past. Surprising in its variety, She Loves Me Not shows Hansen at the height of his powers.

Jesse James was a fabled outlaw, a charismatic, spiritual, larger-than-life bad man whose bloody exploits captured the imagination and admiration of a nation hungry for antiheroes. Robert Ford was a young upstart torn between dedicated worship and murderous jealousy, the “dirty little coward” who coveted Jesse’s legend. The powerful, strange, and unforgettable story of their interweaving paths–and twin destinies that would collide in a rain of blood and betrayal–is a story of America in all her rough, conflicted glory and the myths that made her.

A new novel from Ron Hansen, the award-winning author of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, about an iconic American criminal of the old West: legendary outlaw, Billy the Kid.

Born Henry McCarty, Billy the Kid was a diminutive, charming, blond-haired young man who, growing up in New York, Kansas, and later New Mexico, demonstrated a precocious dexterity at firing six-shooters with either hand–a skill that turned him into an American legend of the old West. He was smart, well-spoken, attractive to both white and Mexican women, a good dancer, and a man with a nose for money, horses, and trouble. His spree of crimes and murders has been immortalized in dime westerns, novels, and movies. But the whole story of his short, epically violent life has never been told as it has been here.

In The Kid, Ron Hansen showcases his masterful research and inimitable style as he breathes life into history, bringing listeners back into the late 1800s and into Billy’s boyhood as a ranch hand just trying to wrest a fortune from an unforgiving landscape. We are with Billy in every gunfight and horse theft, and we get to know him in full before his grand death in a hail of bullets in 1881 at the age of twenty-one.

Original, powerful, and swiftly told, The Kid is an unforgettable listen about a uniquely American antihero.