The Center for Fiction 2025 First Novel Prize, Winner At the age of twenty-nine, tired of trying to get along with members of his crew and tired of the money going into somebody else's pocket, Natch begins working for himself, climbing and cutting down trees in the foothills of north Georgia. He has his truck, ropes, climbing gear, and a rotating selection of secondhand saws he finds at pawn shops and flea markets. He is free to work as he pleases. And he believes he is fine with his life as it is, living alone in an old hunting cabin at the end of a dirt lane, enjoying his habits, exploring his vices, and living, as he puts it, "like some wild thing let loose on the world." Then he meets Asha, an alluring woman who works the nightshift at a convenience store. He finds himself needing her in a way that he has never needed anyone before. Among her charms are her passions for reading and belly dance and her ambition to put herself through school to become a therapist. She believes her studies will cure her of the familial dysfunctions she faced as a child and eventually enable her to help others. When Asha discovers that she is expecting a child, the young couple struggles to convert the excitement of their early days together into a more steadfast companionship. Over the seasons of her pregnancy, Asha discovers that the freedom of their hardscrabble existence is overshadowed by the constant threat of misfortune and injury, and she finds herself timorous to bring a child into a setting where chainsaws are everywhere, where constant fires burn the bones of felled trees, a world of endless struggle in which finding more work means finding more danger.
