The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers

Description

Jason and Whit Fireson, the notorious, bank-robbing duo known as the Firefly Brothers, wake to find themselves lying on cooling boards in a police morgue. Riddled with bullet wounds, the reality is inescapable: they've been killed. But they're alive. It is August of 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression but in the waning months of the great Crime Wave, during which the newly-created FBI killed such famous outlaws as John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd. Across the nation, men are out of work and families are starving, and Americans are stunned and frightened by the collapse of their country's foundations. The Firesons' lovers Darcy and Veronica struggle between grief and an unyielding belief that Jason and Whit have survived, while their stunned mother and straight-arrow third brother desperately try to support their family and evade police spies. And through it all the Firefly Brothers themselves race to find the women they love, and make sense of a world that has come unmoored. Complete with kidnappings and gangsters, heiresses and speakeasies, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers combines the stark realism of a troubled time with all the myth-making magic of the American Dream itself. It is an imaginative and breathless story about being hopelessly outgunned - and tells a tale of danger, redemption, and love that transcends death.

Thomas Mullen is the author of The Last Town on Earth, which was named Best Debut Novel of the Year by USA Today and Best Book of the Year by Chicago Tribune, and won the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for excellence in historical fiction. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and son.

"The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers," is a rip-roaring yarn that manages to be both phantasmagorical and historically accurate. In its labyrinthine, luminous narrative, reminiscent of Michael Chabon's best fiction, readers will find powerful parallels to the present-day... a stunning work of fiction that is intense, deeply satisfying and always uniquely American." Los Angeles Times Praise for The Last Town on Earth 'Thomas Mullen is an old-fashioned storyteller, and his epic novel dramatises the complex tensions between individual rights and group responsibilities. Mullen is both merciless and measured in his depiction of the natural forces that can drag idealism down to earth.' Daily Telegraph 'A subtle, robustly written novel of compelling contemporary resonance. The ensuing crisis involves the entire community, pitting principles against passion, values against instinct.' Observer 'Thomas Mullen's debut novel is an exceptionally powerful portrait of a community losing its soul under intense pressure.' Waterstones Books Quarterly