Paraclete Press is pleased to announce that debut author Katherine James has won the Christianity Today 2018 Fiction Book Award with her novel, Can You See Anything Now? (October 2017 / ISBN 978-1612619316 / Trade Paperback).
“Can You See Anything Now? marks the debut of an exciting literary talent. I hear echoes of Elizabeth Strout and Richard Russo in Katherine James’s richly detailed world, in her empathy, quiet humor, and hope. Richard Foster has said that writing is spiritual if it ‘drill[s] down into the subterranean chambers of the human soul.’ James manages this improbable task as she explores the lives of an inter-generational cast—including the irresistible Margie—drifting between the small-town foibles of Trinity and urban particularities of Manhattan. May her characters, insights, and often-striking prose find the wide audience they deserve.”
—Daniel Bowman, professor at Taylor University, writing for the award committee
James’ novel launched Paraclete’s new fiction line, and for a faith-based press with traditional leanings, the book represents not just a new direction, but a risk, considering James’ use of expletives, and themes of addiction and self-injury in the book that are unsettling to some, though important and realistic to others.
James explores grace in the midst of tragedy, and in the lives of her unforgettable, utterly ruined characters. Can You See Anything Now? follows a year in the small town of Trinity, and the lives of the suicidal painter, Margie, who has been teaching her evangelical neighbor, Etta, how to paint nudes; her husband, the town therapist who suspects his work helps no one; and their college-aged daughter, Noel, whose roommate, Pixie, joins them at home for a winter holiday. The result is a powerful novel of redemption, revealing a new author of great importance.
Author Katherine James has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University in New York City, where she received the Felipe P. De Alba Fellowship. She has been on staff with CRU, a ministry to college students, for over twenty-five years. She is a member of Redbud Writers Guild, and is senior editor for CruPress. Her memoir about the opioid epidemic in the suburbs of Philadelphia and the ways that it affected her family will be published by Paraclete in the fall of 2018. Learn more about the book here.
Can You See Anything Now?
October 2017, Trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-1-61261-931-6
Author photo credit: Dorothy Greco
For more information contact Laura McKendree
lauram@paracletepress.com, (
