Though his second published novel, Hodge’s 1989 Oasis was his first written, and his impressive debut takes readers back to nascent adulthood, pitting its protagonist with a bevy of hard choices, these made all the more impossible as everything he loves is torn apart.

I often catch myself mentally branding authors with a sort of character sheet and traits I find consistently at work with writers I read a lot. For Hodge, three stand out with everything of his I have read: an ability to characterize suffering and loss poignantly and with masterful human behavioral observation, protean and ever-evolving premises engaged in his stories, and, to put it succinctly, he’s never boring.

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