One of the Amazon Editors' Best Books of 2018

Following his hugely celebrated debut novel, The Yellow Birds, Kevin Powers returns to the battlefield and its aftermath, this time in his native Virginia, just before and during the Civil War and ninety years later. The novel pinpoints with unerring emotional depth the nature of random violence, the necessity of love and compassion, and the fragility and preciousness of life. It will endure as a stunning novel about what we leave behind, what a life is worth, what is said and unsaid, and the fact that ultimately what will survive of us is love.

'An American Civil War epic [which] confirms Powers as a significant talent.' Observer

'Gorgeous and devastating' New York Times

'Achingly relevant.' Grazia

"An American Civil War epic [which] confirms Powers as a significant talent." - Observer

"'Gorgeous, devastating... As in his first novel, The Yellow Birds, Powers details these inhumane acts with elegance, restraint and a refreshing absence of sentimentality. His spare, meticulous sentences lend a perverse beauty to even the most brutal passages of the novel and give immediacy and emotional heft to the ordeals of its characters... lays bare the tremendous suffering on which our country was founded and demands its acknowledgment. But Powers also offers love and grace in these pages, and a prayer for redemption." - New York Times

"A work of historical fiction that is as unflinching an examination of our capacity for cruelty and violence as his debut. . . Powers packs much into a relatively short work. . . there is no mistaking the intensity of his vision and his ability to conjure up scenes that stick in the mind. . . A novel that memorably illustrates not only the ways in which violence breeds further violence but also the unrelenting power of the past to shape the present." - Sunday Times

"Powers's prose is lyrical. . . his evocation of slavery-era Richmond is powerfully achieved." - The Times

"The writing is beautiful and powerful. A Shout in the Ruins is confirmation, if it were needed, that Kevin Powers is a writer of rare talent." - FT

"Ranging across time and following several characters whose lives become entangled by chance, family connection and conflict, Powers returns here - with similar, admirable compression - to themes he took up in his celebrated debut, The Yellow Birds . . . A Shout in the Ruins illuminates an entire lost era." - Literary Review

"A daring voyage into and out of the darkest era in American history." - Observer

"One of the chief rewards of this novel is that it speaks very much to the present through the generational interplay of its characters . . . It is told subtly and with great empathy: Powers once again demonstrates the precise eye for imagery and detail that is becoming the hallmark of his work." - TLS

"This troubling, stirring book is informed by Mr Powers's deep understanding of war's complexities, and of how people are broken and shaped by it." - The Economist

"With a complex structure reminiscent of Faulkner, Powers adroitly weaves his narrative threads together with subtle connections that reinforce his themes of longing for coherence and the continuing effect of the past on the present. An impressive novel of slavery, destruction, and the arduous difficulties of love." - Kirkus

"Achingly relevant." - Grazia

"Possesses the same intimate, lyrical power as his haunting debut . . . This is a fine, relevant novel from a notable author." - BookPage

"Contains moments that burn." - Daily Mail

"Suitably unvarnished, but not without moments of beauty or deep emotion. A Shout in the Ruins brushes aside myth and romanticism for a clear-eyed look at America." - Shelf Awareness

"Beautifully formed sentences express unsettling truths about humanity, yet tendrils of hope emerge, showing how love and kindness can take root in seemingly barren earth." - Bookli

"PRAISE FOR THE YELLOW BIRDS: Extraordinary . . . beautifully accomplished. The mark of an artist of the first order . . . a must-read book." - Guardian

"A masterpiece . . . a classic." - The Times Books of the Year

"A stunning achievement - visceral [and] poignant." - Sunday Times

"Remarkable for its intensity of both feeling and expression. In this book about death, every line is a defiant assertion of the power of beauty to revivify, whether beauty shows itself in nature or (later) in art." - Guardian Books of the Year

"A wonderful, powerful novel that moves and terrifies." - Independent

"Powers has written a compassionate, poetic evocation of war and its legacy which has already been hailed as a classic of its genre." - Sunday Express Books of the Year

"Nothing escapes the author's fanatical analysis and the observations are often startling and true" - Sunday Times