A Best Book of 2014 Pick for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Salon, Electric Literature, and Amazon.
“Daring and brilliant…something of a miracle.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“A powerful book, an unflinching examination of two centuries of American yearning and desire.”—Colum McCann, Buy the Book, The New York Times Book Review
"Deeply imagined… Cheshire skillfully writes about the burdens and silver linings offered by faith and other inheritances."—John Williams, The New York Times
"Magnificent….Cheshire has managed to pack an American epic’s worth of Americana in just a few hundred pages."--Amazon Omnivorous
“Cheshire is a writer of undeniable talent and power.”--The Seattle Times
“Highbrow…Brilliant…A time-traveling, DeLillo-esque debut.”--New York Magazine
"Astounding…beautiful…mysterious…one of the finest novels you will read this year."--Flavorwire
"It seems an almost brazen thing to do these days: write a novel about a child preacher prophesying the end of times. But that’s just what Cheshire has done, and we should all thank him….This ambitious debut is—more than anything—a testament to the sacred bonds of consanguinity."--Star Tribune
"[Cheshire has] a convincing ventriloquist with an ear for all variety of language, from biblical cadence to ethnic dialect and slang…fresh and propulsive throughout."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Intoxicating…subtle, sometimes lyrical….Through its structure, Bridles does some of its best storytelling between the pages….Extremely ambitious."--Grantland
In a crowded amphitheater in Queens, New York, a nervous twelve-year-old Josiah Laudermilk steps to the stage to deliver his first sermon to thousands of waiting believers. A prodigy, they called him, the next in a long line of faithful men. Decades later, though, after a failed marriage and years away from the church and his home, Josiah (now Josie) finally returns to Queens to check on his father, who seems to be losing his grip on reality. Barreling through the old neighborhood, he's flooded with memories of his past, but when he finally arrives at his family's old house, he's completely unprepared for what he finds. Reaching from 1980 New York to present-day sunny California to a tent-revival in nineteenth-century rural Kentucky, High as the Horses' Bridles is an imaginative and heartbreaking debut from a bold new American voice.