RPCV Writer from Belize

I’ve come across a novel (his first) by RPCV Barry Kitterman who was in Belize in the seventies that came out in May 2008 from Southern Methodist University Press entitled The Baker’s Boy. The novel is set in Central America and in middle Tennessee, and involves two intertwined stories. In the first, Tanner Johnson, nearing midlife, has left his pregnant wife and taken a job as a baker, working nights, trying to avoid a shadowy presence that haunts him from the past. In the second, Tanner relives his painful experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Belize, where he taught at a boys’ reform school. Of the book, novelists Rick DeMarinis writes, “A strong and haunting debut novel by a fine writer.” Davide Bradley, who wrote The Chaneysville Incident, says the book reminds him of “expatriate novels like Graham Greene’s The Quiet American.”

I’ve “read into it,” as book editors like to say in New York publishing when they haven’t read the whole book, and I can honestly say that Kitterman can write. Barry has lived and taught (since Belize) in China, Taiwan, Ohio, and Indiana. He now teaches at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. Married with two children, he is also the editor of Zone 3 Magazine. Check out his site BarryKitterman.com.

Here are a few of his upcoming readings and signings if you are in the area.

Feb 26 – Hopkinsville (KY) Community College, 7:00 p.m.

Mar 19 – Miami University, Peabody Hall, Oxford OH, 8:00 p.m.

April 18 – Southern Kentucky Book Festival, Sloan Convention Center, Bowling Green