Gold Lion Press

53 pages, $10.00

Review by Denton Loving

Jay Shearer is the author of the novel Five Hundred Sirens (Cairn Press, May 2014) and the short story collection How Exquisite the Dead Girl (finalist for the 2013 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction). His novella, The Pulpit vs. The Hole, was understandably selected by Percival Everett as winner of the Gold Line Press chapbook competition.

In The Pulpit vs. The Hole, Shearer gives a coming-of-age story like few others.  This is a contemporary tale that takes place at an aptly-named summer camp, Camp Abednego, in Eastern Pennsylvania.  Here Shearer presents the age-old questions that always arise when good and evil must confront each other.  What makes Shearer’s story so powerful are the unique setting and circumstances in which the questions are asked. Continue reading →