“In prose drenched with awe, Charlie J. Stephens’ tender novel takes a child’s perspective on the pains of being poor in rural Oregon. Knowing that children like Smokey are cast as furniture in the house of adult desires, immobile and without needs, A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest begs us to take them seriously.”
—FOREWORD REVIEWS, starred review
In 1980’s Oregon, Smokey is figuring out how to survive childhood with a young mom who is increasingly desperate in her search for love. As their mother’s boyfriends come and go, Smokey aches for the comfort and safety their mother can never quite provide. When a dangerous new man moves into the house, Smokey seeks refuge in the nearby forests—finding comfort as they give themselves over to the strength and beauty of the natural world.
“A harrowing and wholly realistic story of suffering, but also a message about resiliency, the healing power of nature, and simple survival.”
—SHELF AWARENESS
A pulsing novel filled with so much love and tenderness.”
—MORGAN TALTY, Night of the Living Rez
“A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest is utterly gorgeous. I wish I had this book growing up, I wish my mother had this book, and her mother, and everyone who has ever had to turn their pain into meaning.”
—KALI FAJARDO-ANSTINE, Woman of Light
“At times moody and violent, other times tender and curious, Charlie J. Stephens’ debut novel A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest hits hard; it’s a story about anger, about self-discovery, about abuse, about refuge, but ultimately about survival.”
—TOMAS MONIZ, All Friends Are Necessary
“A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest portrays the nearly inexpressible—the blazing soul of a child who lives well outside the reach of economic, social, or familial protections. Young Smokey exists in a world of lurid carnal facts, of adults incapable of rising above their own clamoring needs, of a post-industrial Nature that yet calls to its own. Charlie J. Stephens sustains the authorial courage to stick the landing: no simplistic plot saves, no looking away.”
—KARIN ANDERSON, What Falls Away
“Stephens reveals a secret and unseen world where being othered is at once the cage and the key.”
—JONATHAN T. BAILEY, When I Was Red Clay
CHARLIE J. STEPHENS is a queer, non-binary, mixed-race writer from the Pacific Northwest. Born and raised in Salem, Oregon, and currently living in Port Orford on the southern Oregon coast, they are the owner of Sea Wolf Books & Community Writing Center. Charlie’s short fiction has appeared in Electric Literature, Best Small Fictions 2020, New World Writing, and Original Plumbing (Feminist Press).