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Leonard Self has spent a year unwinding his ranch paying down debts and fending off the darkening Just one thing left taking his wifes ashes to her favorite overlook where he plans to step off the cliff with her into a stark and beautiful landscape But Leonard finds he has company on a route that intertwines old wounds and new insights that make him question whether his life is over after allPart modern western part mystery this first novel will appeal to fans of Louise Erdrich and Kent Haruf Quimbys prose reads so true it breaks the heartBOOKLIST starred reviewThe Colorado setting and the authors simple style of prose perfectly complement the complexity of the human spirit in this superb debutPUBLISHERS WEEKLYMonument Road is so rich with landscape character and event that such a small telling cannot begin to do it justice Read this exquisite story it is a joy and a wonder and a tour de force of authorshipSHELF AWARENESSQuimbys storytelling his humane impulses and his lyrical passages on the meaning of love and time and on the history geology and botany of the region will surely impress readersMINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNEQuimby uses words as spare as Colorados landscape to describe characters who range from endearing to crusty wise to foolish spiritual to downright evil The folks who live near Monument Road arent just descriptions in a book theyre complex people readers will care aboutmdashFOREWORD REVIEWSNot to be overlooked is the love humor and friendship among pain and loss which makes it a book far more about the richness of life than the finality of deathGRAND JUNCTION DAILY SENTINELMonument Road is a wonderful novel full of wit and wisdom generosity and maliceGRAND JUNCTION FREE PRESSQuimbys writing is sensitive and graceful he has a talent for revealing slowly blossoming characters who are beautifully flawed and realisticTHE DESERET NEWSWhile not exactly a happy novel Monument Road is beautiful and real full of landscape imagery of the American Southwest as a poignant and sometimes haunting metaphor of our connections to the land BYTESThis is a novel with size and scope and generosity with an acute understanding of human nature and a deep appreciation for the ways people face change and work out their lives in relation to each otherKent Meyers author of Twisted Tree and The Work of WolvesIn prose that might have been chiseled from the magnificent landscape he describes Charlie Quimby has written a great big American Novel Full of pathos and humor and sadness you wont reach the end of this book without feeling fuller and wiser What a gift Charlie has given usPeter Geye author of The Lighthouse Road and Safe from the SeaMonument Road is a legitimate modern western complete with an impressively authentic and aging rancher heartache ghosts low-lifes a rural landscape undergoing radical transformation a glut of evangelical churches and the ancient powerful cliffs and mesas that surround it all in southwestern Colorado The narrative is likewise unpredictable and wild A pleasure to readBonnie Nadzam author of LambThe landscape and characters of Monument Road ring true Charlie Quimby has created a story that is hard to forget His attention to the details of a fading life and life style are spot on and will be a window to any readers understanding of the central phenomenon of the New WestDan OBrien author of Stolen Horses and Buffalo for the Broken Heart Restoring Life to a Black Hills RanchMonument Road is a big-hearted novel chock full of memorable characters a pleasure to readDavid Rhodes author of Jewelweed and Driftless.
About the Author
Lives, like stories, get to be most interesting when they are about choices - and not just about what happens. My writing life has reflected a number of choices over the years, and I very often picked a path that crossed some kind of divide.
I wrote and performed protest songs at antiwar rallies, and later went to work explaining the defense contractor's side. I studied to be playwright and actor and then became a theater critic who wrote about playwrights and actors. As a ghostwriter, my words appeared under other names in the Harvard Business Review, at the NFL Hall of Fame and in a book about community planning. I spent too many years as a blogger trying to get liberals and conservatives to talk constructively with each other and then took up writing about homeless people who too often have no voice at all.
My first novel, MONUMENT ROAD, came out in 2013, and was chosen by independent booksellers as an Indies Next Great Read and was a Booklist Editors pick for 2013. Its successor novel, INHABITED, was published in October 2016 received a starred review fro Publishers Weekly.
