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by Timothy Stoddard (Author)
What if the world is too blinded by dogma to recognize the divine presence right in front of its eyes?
In the isolation of the Bluestone Woodland, all life pivots around an ancient apple tree. The human world across the river is deeply obsessed with fixed, unyielding religious ideas-indifferent to the subtle, living currents of the natural world. When a white-faced yearling named Saint is born into the herd during a time of looming darkness, her presence begins to alter the spiritual fabric of the forest.
As a violent local campaign called "Thin the Herd" escalates, the lines of grace and survival collide. Moving between the perspectives of the deer clan, a reclusive painter prophetic in his grief, his friend, the Woman, and the Man with the Crooked Finger-a hunter across the river-this hauntingly poetic, dark pastoral narrative unfolds. Timothy Stoddard's masterful debut, Bluestone Folklore, is a radical, subversive critique of spiritual blindness, exploring the visceral boundaries between nature, trauma, and a rewilded mysticism that refuses to be tamed by human hands.
Perfect for readers of Jeff VanderMeer, Barbara Kingsolver, and high-concept, transgressive literary fiction, Bluestone Folklore challenges everything you think you know about sacrifice, survival, and the true face of the sacred.
