Remember Ben Clayton [Paperback]

Winner of the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best American Historical Fiction

Francis Gil Gilheaney is a sculptor of boundless ambition, but bad fortune and pride have driven him and his long-suffering daughter Maureen into artistic exile in Texas just after World War I. When an aging rancher commissions Gil to create a memorial statue of his son who was killed in action, Gil believes it will be his greatest achievement. But as work proceeds on the statue, Gil and Maureen come to realize that their new client is a far more complicated man than they ever expected, and that he is guarding a secret that haunts his relationship with his son even in death.
“Stephen Harrigan ranks among the finest atmospheric novelists…. Simply put, storytelling does not get any better than this.” —The Dallas Morning News
 
“One of the best novels of [the year]. . . . Like Ian McEwan’sAtonement. . . Harrigan magically re-creates a point in history while engaging readers with a mesmerizing story.” —Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
 
“A poignantly human monument to our history.” —TheWall Street Journal
 
“Remember Ben Claytonis a superior piece of storytelling, a historical novel, a Texas saga, an allegory of art and all the important issues it can raise, an onion of a book with many leathery layers to be unpeeled, eventually revealing our vast capacity to love, and to hurt the ones we love, and to forgive.” —San Antonio Express-News

“Magnificently compelling. . . . Stephen Harrigan handles these scenes with immaculate detail, an acute ear for fear and cruelty, and an eye for the unpredictability of human behavior in moments of passion. . . .We are knocked flat with admiration.” —The Washington Post
 
“Like the unforgiving bullets that pierce Clayton’s flesh, ló,