From the publisher Bantam—

In this haunting and poignant debut novel, James Braziel tells an unforgettable story of love, family, and survival across a world that has already begun to die.…

When the ozone layer opened and the sun relentlessly scorched the land, there was nothing left but to hope. Mathew Harrison had always heard of a better life as close as Birmingham, only thirty-five miles away—zones of blue sky, wet grass, and clean breathable air. But to him it’s a myth, a place guarded by soldiers, off limits to all but the lucky few. Meanwhile Mat works alongside his father, mining only the red clay that the once fertile Alabama soil can offer.

Now, with the killing deserts on the move again and the woman he loves on a Greyhound heading north, Mat has a travel visa and every reason to leave. But his roots in this lifeless soil inexplicably hold him firmly to the past. Torn between hope and resignation, with time running out, Mat must make a fateful choice between a new life and the one that isn’t ready to let him go.

Finishing Line Press published Weathervane in 2003. The chapbook was the first collection of my work and is out-of-print.

“James Braziel writes of rural life, that of his youth in particular and American in general,” says Richard Messer, author of Murder in the Family.  “The experience rendered in such marvelous lyric detail in Weathervane is of life lived in close and constant relationship to the elements.  The power of the weather and the primal forces of nature, of growth and decay, dominate the inner and outer landscapes of the poems.  The success of  Weathervane derives from its sympathy for the land and those who live close to it; from its tenderness, its vividly original imagery, and the fact that, while it speaks personally of the poet’s own youth, it also portrays the pathos of our collective loss as we become more and more alienated from the land.”

Tony Grooms, author of Bombingham and Trouble No More writes, “Wake up and welcome James Braziel’s fresh voice and vision to the realm of American letters.  Born of the farmland, his poems are songs of the elements—of drought and rain, of field and woods, of fire, sky and stone.  His language is lyrical and as luscious in the mouth as cool, ripe black berries.  Reminiscent of the deep imagery of James Wright, these observations of the South and the Mid-west are visions of American life that are deeply felt, and deeply hoped for.  The weathervane of the title poem is a television antennae ‘spun like a tree in the switching wind.’  Like that weathervane these poems sway and spin, but they are well-grounded as they home in on the language and imagery of a beautiful, suffering landscape and the people who farm it or journey through it.  James Braziel is an impressively talented young poet and writer who stands at the beginning of what promises to be an engaging and thoughtful literary journey.”