Overview

Clessie Bonaparte, a young biracial woman living on her father's farm in the Midwest in 1916, knows only a life of suffering. After her Ojibwe Native American mother dies under mysterious circumstances, Clessie is forced to live through the abuse meted out by her white father. When she discovers she's pregnant, she makes the fateful decision to flee her father's farm so that she and her child can have a better life. Clessie travels west to northern Arizona where she has her baby. Then, overcome again by the terrors she herself has had to survive, she makes the only choice she believes will ensure the baby won't suffer the same. Afterwards she flees into the forest with one intention: to disappear. Months pass until she's discovered by Isaac, the foreman of a cattle ranch. Despite her resolution to erase herself, Clessie finds Isaac's kindness and protective nature healing. As she continues to struggle to live beyond the brutality she's endured, Clessie opens her heart to make a new life with this man and to reckon once more with her father and her past.

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9781662931109

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Reviews

Book Review 1: ""Don House Fine Art photographer and co-author with Sabine Schmidt of ""Remote Access;"" author of ""Buffalo Creek Chronicles: Diary of a Cattle Ranch on the Southern Plains"" ""Lang's debut novel will keep you up at night, long after the reading's done. From the first page, we are drawn into the horror that is the daily routine of Clessie Bonaparte, a young, biracial woman as she flees cross country to the West at the turn of the 20th century. Lang's striking depiction of both Clessie's haunted desperation and the decisions she must make to save herself and protect her unborn child cannot be attributed solely to the author's significant talent as a writer. Lang clearly brings secrets of his own. Book Review 2: David Weddle Author of ""If They Move... Kill 'Em! - The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah,"" ""Among the Mansions of Eden,"" writer-producer of ""Battlestar Galactica,"" ""The Strain,"" and ""For All Mankind"" ""All the Darkness Holds is a ruthless examination of the human heart with all of its manifold contradictions. Lang is fascinated by our capacity for both cruel depravity and tender mercies. His is not a despairing vision, but one that believes in the possibility of redemption."" Book Review 3: Katherine Turman Journalist, Los Angeles Times, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, New York Observer, Esquire, and co-author of Louder Than Hell - the Definitive Oral History of Metal ""Lang's debut novel is darkly haunting, a la Cormac McCarthy. The taut, lyrical prose gives close and thoughtful attention to Clessie Bonaparte's sometimes-troubling and intimate narrative. All the Darkness Holds also hints at Lang's other life as a prolific writer of numinous hit songs."" Book Review 4: Richard Page Singer-Songwriter, Pages, Mr. Mister, CBS-Epic, Capitol, RCA, Blue Thumb Records. Author's principle co-songwriter 1970-2014 ""All the Darkness Holds is a deeply compelling story of a young woman's harrowing journey from unimaginable cruelty and self-doubt to remarkable self-awakening. Lang's characters and skillful, soulful story-telling will linger in your consciousness long after putting this book down.""

Author Information

John Lang was born into the Arizona State Adoption System, where he stayed until he was adopted out. At the age of thirteen he was arrested for stealing motorcycles and was sent to New Mexico Military Institute, where he wrote his first poem. Soon after that, he began writing short stories. After he was released from the Institute he went on to forge a twenty-five-year career as a journeyman pop song lyricist and songwriter in Hollywood, California, writing songs for everyone from Tupac Shakur to Celine Dion, as well as the evergreen hits ""Broken Wings"" and ""Kyrie"" for the band Mr. Mister. During that time he continued to write fiction; he graduated from the MFA Writing program at Columbia University in 1992; won the William Faulkner Literary Competition with his short story ""Bent Spoon"" in 2018; and completed the novel, ""All the Darkness Holds,"" which was a semi-finalist in the 2024 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. ""Writing keeps me hinged, ' he says. ""It always has. Early on I found that the life of the mind can be just as intoxicating as that of the sublunary world."" John Lang lives in southern California with his wife and son.

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