John Brandon

A comatose piano prodigy is attended by his gruff father, a motley vigil of devotees, a disconsolate wolf and a would-be angel who determinedly writes songs that could free him. By the author of Citrus County.

A Million Heavens

Arkansas

Productive days don't just happen. They're the result of upending the habits that aren't working for us and developing ones that will. Using his proven 7-minute framework, productivity expert John Brandon reveals how to radically reduce digital distractions and revamp your routines for better focus, efficiency, and outcomes. The 7-Minute Productivity Solution shows you how to - start your day - manage your schedule - stop obsessively checking email - take effective breaks - create compelling presentations - and more It only takes 7 minutes to transform your days from mindlessly reacting to whatever comes your way to mindfully structuring your time for maximum impact.

How to Manage Your Schedule, Overcome Distraction, and Achieve the Results You Want

The 7-Minute Productivity Solution

In Ivory Shoals, twelve-year-old Gussie Dwyer--audacious, resilient, determined to adhere to the morals his mother instilled in him--undertakes to trek across the sumptuous yet perilous peninsula of post-Civil War Florida in search of his father, a man who has no idea of his son's existence. Gussie's journey sees him cross paths with hardened Floridians of every stripe, from the brave and noble to a bevy of cutthroat villains, none worse than his amoral shark of a stepbrother. Rich in visceral details and told with a pulse-quickening pace, Ivory Shoals is a distinctly American story, in the tradition of Mark Twain and Cormac McCarthy. The novel is also a timeless epic, tracking Gussie's odyssey from childhood toward adulthood. Will he survive his quest, and at what cost?

Ivory Shoals

There shouldn't be a Citrus County. Teenage romance should be difficult, but not this difficult. Boys like Toby should cause trouble but not this much. The moon should glow gently over children safe in their beds. Uncles in their rockers should be kind. Teachers should guide and inspire. Manatees should laze and palm trees sway and snakes keep to their shady spots under the azalea thickets. The air shouldn't smell like a swamp. The stars should twinkle. Shelby should be her own hero, the first hero of Citrus County. She should rescue her sister from underground, rescue Toby from his life. Her destiny should be a hero's destiny.

Citrus County

When teenage Shelby Register moves to Citrus County, Florida, with her single father and little sister, she's expecting surfers instead of rednecks, but she decides to make the best of it. Things become complicated when Toby, a neglected, loveless boy living with his abusive uncle, becomes her twisted love interest. Toby finds trouble far more elaborate than ordinary delinquency when he enacts a strange, cruel plot on the Register clan. Then Toby realizes that he can't reverse the effects of his 'prank', and his and Shelby's fates hurtle towards tragedy...

The millennium is drawing to a close. Pratt, a young Floridian who’s just finished a prison sentence he both did and didn't deserve, is looking to start a new life. But will he be able to shake his shady past? Brimming with tension, action, wry dialogue, and unexpected pathos, Penalties of June is John Brandon’s sixth book published by McSweeney’s. With his distinct feel for the underbelly of his home state of Florida, Brandon takes readers into the forbidding corners of the Tampa Bay area—unsavory motels, secondhand shops, no-frills diners, and dubious used-car lots. Pratt navigates crime bosses and drug dealers on a perilous mission, his steed a trusty (if creaky) Chrysler LeBaron. Faced with an impossible choice, and the prospect of finally finding love after years behind bars, Pratt risks it all for a chance at making things right.

Penalties of June

Even mature Christians can have moments of spiritual apathy, seasons when you just go through the motions and rely on your own strength to survive. John Brandon’s Lifeblood has the answer. The power of the Holy Spirit inside you—the lifeblood—is the only way to bring about authentic spiritual growth. In seven rich chapters, John shares how tapping into the lifeblood will revitalize all aspects of your life. If you want to transform how you view your Christian life and live radically for God, this book is a must-read.

Tapping into Jesus as the True Source of Renewal

Lifeblood

“A tale of three young men who’ve taken one look at straight life and drop-kicked it . . . Picaresque, sly, bitterly funny, the novel hooks us at once” (San Francisco Chronicle). Met with wide acclaim, Arkansas is a darkly comic debut novel written by John Brandon about a pair of drug runners, Kyle and Swin, set in the rural southeast. Drawing comparisons to a striking range of storytellers, from Quentin Tarantino and Mark Twain to Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy, John Brandon—an MFA graduate of Washington University who worked an array of odd jobs while writing the novel, including at a rubber factory and a windshield warehouse—delivers a tightly written, bitterly funny story that chronicles the monochromatic landscape of the American southeast and gives a glimpse into the mindset of his wildly troubled yet seemingly real characters. “Brandon’s premier novel is a must for those who love the criminal and the stern yet dark optimism of the existential. His vision of Arkansas is unique, his wit is sharp, and the sympathy he has for his characters is genuine. For all the dark alleys Brandon explores, both physically and psychologically, Arkansas’s power rests in its redefining and restructuring of the criminal’s only hope: family.” —PopMatters

John Brandon

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