{"id":46504,"date":"2018-05-23T12:30:40","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T18:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=46504"},"modified":"2018-05-22T16:34:44","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T22:34:44","slug":"michael-bible-signs-empire-of-light-at-off-square-books-in-oxford-mississippi-tuesday-may-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/michael-bible-signs-empire-of-light-at-off-square-books-in-oxford-mississippi-tuesday-may-29\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Bible Signs “Empire of Light” at Off Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi Tuesday, May 29"},"content":{"rendered":"

From \u201cone of the most interesting and exciting new novelists in years\u201d\u00a0<\/span>(Electric Literature<\/em>), a story of imagination and survival in the tradition\u00a0<\/span>of Carson McCullers<\/strong> and Denis Johnson<\/strong>.\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Trouble follows Alvis Maloney<\/strong> wherever he goes. After an adolescent\u00a0<\/span>prank leads to a stranger\u2019s death, the teenage Maloney rambles\u00a0<\/span>westward. He lands in a small North Carolina<\/strong> town the rest of the\u00a0<\/span>world forgot and falls in love\u2014in love with his neighbor Molly, in love\u00a0<\/span>with a lonesome quarterback called Miles, in love with a whole\u00a0<\/span>community of enduring misfits and losers.<\/span><\/p>\n

But at the same time, another life takes shape in his seductive, dreamlike visions: a horse named\u00a0<\/span>Forever, a princess with hypochondria, and an electric city that\u2019s always just out of reach. As\u00a0<\/span>these two promises of home fight for their hold on Maloney, the story careens toward disaster,\u00a0<\/span>and in the end Maloney must choose between love and redemption.<\/span><\/p>\n

From the virtuosic author of Sophia, Michael Bible<\/strong>\u2019s Empire of Light<\/em> is a novel about the\u00a0<\/span>conflicting truths of young adulthood, and it blooms with mystical imagination and a soaring,\u00a0<\/span>hopeful heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

Michael Bible is originally from North Carolina. He studied under Barry Hannah<\/strong> at Ole Miss<\/strong> and\u00a0<\/span>worked with David Milch<\/strong> adapting William Faulkner\u2019s Light in August<\/em> for HBO. He is the\u00a0<\/span>author of Sophia<\/em> (Melville House), the chapbooks Gorilla Math<\/em> (Greying Ghost Press) and My\u00a0<\/em><\/span>Second Best Bear Rug<\/em> (Paper Hero Press), and the novellas Simple Machines<\/em> (Publishing\u00a0<\/span>Genius) and Cowboy Maloney\u2019s Electric City<\/em> (Dark Sky Books). His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Oxford American<\/em>, The Paris Review Daily<\/em>, Al Jazeera America<\/em>, ESPN: the Magazine<\/em>, and New\u00a0<\/em><\/span>York Tyrant<\/em>.\u00a0\"The<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Michael Bible Signs “Empire of Light” at Off Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi Tuesday, May 29 at 5 pm.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From \u201cone of the most interesting and exciting new novelists in years\u201d\u00a0(Electric Literature), a story of imagination and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2239],"tags":[12526,12517,4541,12514,12524,12519,12515,12516,12518,12527,12521,8699,12522,12528,4998,7067,6849,12523,12520,12525,85],"class_list":["post-46504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-literary-events","tag-al-jazeera-america","tag-alvis-maloney","tag-barry-hannah","tag-carson-mccullers","tag-cowboy-maloneys-electric-city","tag-david-milch","tag-denis-johnson","tag-electric-literature","tag-empire-of-light","tag-espn-the-magazine","tag-gorilla-math","tag-michael-bible","tag-my-second-best-bear-rug","tag-new-york-tyrant","tag-north-carolina","tag-ole-miss","tag-oxford-american","tag-simple-machines","tag-sophia","tag-the-paris-review-daily","tag-william-faulkner"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MichaelBible.jpg?fit=400%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}