The Beautiful Ashes of Gomez Gomez
July 21st, 2020. Filed under: Contests & Giveaways, Tuesday's Tempting Reads.
If world events are getting you down and you’re ready for an escape, take a trip to Paradise, Arizona, via Buck Storm’s new literary fiction release, The Beautiful Ashes of Gomez Gomez (Kregel Publications/July 21, 2020/ISBN: 9780825446375/$15.99). Storm admits his new book isn’t your typical faith-based novel. In fact, in his own words, he describes it as a bit funky, sometimes over the top, and rarely going where you’re expecting it to go.
When his wife, Angel, is killed in a head-on collision, Gomez Gomez feels he can’t go on—so he doesn’t. He spends his days in the bushes next to the crash site drinking Thunderbird wine, and his nights cradling a coffee can full of Angel’s ashes. It’s a form of slow, sure suicide, with no one for company but the snakes, Elvis’s ghost, and a strange kid named Bones. Gomez Gomez has always been a little (or a lot) out there, but the endless flow of alcohol sure doesn’t help.
“Gomez Gomez’s sad state of affairs is the result of grief, pure and simple. At least as pure and simple as grief can be, I guess,” Storm explains. “He’s heartbroken at the loss of Angel. For years he was a black sheep, traveling the rodeo circuit and making trouble. When he met Angel everything changed. Somehow—a miracle in his mind—she saw something good and fine in him. She picked him out of a group of men he felt inferior to. She loved him unconditionally. She showed him what love is, unconditionally. She also introduced him to God. Not in an overhanded way, but by living love out every minute of every day. When she dies, Gomez Gomez simply can no longer get his arms around reality. For him, an Angel-less world is not a world worth existing in.”
The world outside his makeshift shack doesn’t really concern Gomez Gomez until Sonny Harmon, who owns the car dealership next door to the vacant lot, wants the land to expand. Sonny wants Gomez Gomez gone yesterday, and in Paradise, Sonny’s money speaks. Because Angel was special to everyone, when Gomez Gomez won’t leave, the town squares up and takes sides.
Coming to Gomez Gomez’s aid is his once-close friend Father Jake Morales, who always seems to play it safe, haunted by memories of the woman he left behind, hiding his guilt, loss, and love behind a thick wall of cassock and ritual. When Sonny’s shady business dealings threaten both Gomez Gomez and the town, Father Jake, can’t just stand by and watch. But what happens when the rescuer is the one in need of saving?
Read an excerpt from Kregel by clicking here.
| Buck Storm is a critically acclaimed author and musician whose stories have found friends around the world. His nonfiction work includes Finding Jesus in Israel and Through the Holy Land on the Road Less Traveled. Storm’s novels include The List, The Light, Truck Stop Jesus, and The Miracle Man. The latest, The Beautiful Ashes of Gomez Gomez, launches his new series, Ballads of Paradise. Storm and his wife, Michelle, make their home in North Idaho and have two married children. Learn more about Buck Storm, as well as his writing and music, at buckstorm.com. He can also be found on Facebook (@buckstormauthor), Twitter (@buckstormauthor), and Instagram (@buckstorm). |