Tin God

"This is God," the novel begins, and we are spinning on our way into the heart of a Midwest that spans spirits and centuries and forever redefines the middle of nowhere. Whispers plague a desperate conquistador lost in tall prairie grass. Four hundred years later, a male go-go dancer flings a bag of dope into the same field. God, in the person of a perm-giving, sheetcake-baking Nebraska farm woman, casts a jaundiced yet merciful eye over the unfolding chaos. Fire and a pair of judiciously applied pantyhose bring the two stories together. A contemplation of divinity and drugs on the ground, Tin God is a funny yet poignant, time-shifting story of the plains that transcends its interstate spine and exposes us to a whole new level of Svoboda's fiery prose. Terese Svoboda, a native of Ogallala, Nebraska, is the author of five volumes of poetry and four novels, including Bohemian Girl (Nebraska, 2011); a collection of short stories, Trailer Girl and Other Stories (Nebraska, 2009); a nonfiction book, Black Glasses Like Clark Kent: A GI's Secret from Postwar Japan, winner of the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize; and a New York Times Book Review Writer's Choice selection, Cleaned the Crocodile's Teeth, translated from the Nuer, the language of a South Sudanese people, many of whom have settled in Nebraska.