This book is not available to purchase on Fable
After the Wolf
By
Publisher Description
A gripping chronicle of a Mormon family in the American West, with shades of Annie Proulx and Larry McMurtry
Electrified by a handshake with the prophet Joseph Smith, Altus Pace, a newly baptized Mormon, is called westward with his fellow believers. In California, though, he is alarmed by the heavy-handed patriarchy and plural marriage codified by Smith’s successor, Brigham Young. Ignoring Young’s call to gather in Utah, Altus and his wife go to Texas to raise four sons in isolated piety. But when they take in a stranded young woman, Altus succumbs to the practice he once despised. Aghast, Altus’s third son, Jacob, retreats west to build Pace Ranch––where his father’s dream of pious, monogamous family life could be reimagined.
As America comes of age around them, four consecutive generations of Jacob Paces painstakingly observe the moral legacy of their ancestors. Within them the old, congenital battles wage between polygamy and fidelity, patriarchy and feminism, tradition and modernity. In 1994, with the ranch now occupied by Jacob IV, his wife Tanya, and daughter Willow, history threatens to repeat itself with the arrival of Kelly, a young graduate of Brigham Young University.
Alongside Kelly looms the Pace’s inherited curse. Jacob’s idealism is dimmed as he confronts the choice between love and desire. Tested to the limits, the Pace family undertakes an agonizing attempt to reconcile their religion with the demands of the world and man’s inherent nature.
A saga of saints and wolves, magic and mania, After the Wolf is an epic with the scope, insight, and quiet majesty found only in the greatest novels of the American West. Through fury, through faith, through art and madness, this devastating debut taps into the deepest recesses of the search for belief and belonging in the religious embers of an evolving nation.
Electrified by a handshake with the prophet Joseph Smith, Altus Pace, a newly baptized Mormon, is called westward with his fellow believers. In California, though, he is alarmed by the heavy-handed patriarchy and plural marriage codified by Smith’s successor, Brigham Young. Ignoring Young’s call to gather in Utah, Altus and his wife go to Texas to raise four sons in isolated piety. But when they take in a stranded young woman, Altus succumbs to the practice he once despised. Aghast, Altus’s third son, Jacob, retreats west to build Pace Ranch––where his father’s dream of pious, monogamous family life could be reimagined.
As America comes of age around them, four consecutive generations of Jacob Paces painstakingly observe the moral legacy of their ancestors. Within them the old, congenital battles wage between polygamy and fidelity, patriarchy and feminism, tradition and modernity. In 1994, with the ranch now occupied by Jacob IV, his wife Tanya, and daughter Willow, history threatens to repeat itself with the arrival of Kelly, a young graduate of Brigham Young University.
Alongside Kelly looms the Pace’s inherited curse. Jacob’s idealism is dimmed as he confronts the choice between love and desire. Tested to the limits, the Pace family undertakes an agonizing attempt to reconcile their religion with the demands of the world and man’s inherent nature.
A saga of saints and wolves, magic and mania, After the Wolf is an epic with the scope, insight, and quiet majesty found only in the greatest novels of the American West. Through fury, through faith, through art and madness, this devastating debut taps into the deepest recesses of the search for belief and belonging in the religious embers of an evolving nation.
Download the free Fable app
Stay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
Rate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
Curate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesStay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building toolRate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tagsCurate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesNo Reviews
About Terrie Petree & Hollands
Terrie Petree & Hollands is a writer from Hays, Kansas. She has published essays and short fiction in various publications throughout the nation, in which she explores the intricacy, beauty, and absurdity of modern religious life. She attended Brigham Young University and served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Bilbao, Spain. She returned to BYU to complete a bachelor’s degree in English before earning a master’s degree in American Literature from San Diego State University. While at SDSU, Petree befriended National Book Award-winner William T. Vollmann and put her missionary Spanish to use as Vollmann's translator and driver in the brothels and ranchlands of Mexico’s border cities—the origin of a lifelong friendship. In 2009, she married microbiologist Dr. Andrew Hollands. Together they live in Pacific Beach, California, with their three children. After the Wolf is her first novel.
Start a Book Club
Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!FAQ
Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?
Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?
How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?
Do you sell physical books too?
Are book clubs free to join on Fable?
How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?
