Boy With Wings with Mark Mustian

Every misfit has a story. This one has wings. From internationally renowned author Mark Mustian comes a novel where historical Southern Gothic meets the supernatural, in a story like no other. In the Jim Crow South, a baby is born with strange, wing-like appendages. The townsfolk call him a devil. His mother calls him Johnny Cruel—and to save him, she fakes his death and runs. So begins a life on the margins. Set against the backdrop of 1930s and ’40s America, Boy With Wings is a poignant work of Southern literary fiction about one boy’s extraordinary body and his lifelong struggle to belong. From a backwoods turpentine camp to a traveling freak show, from found families of outcasts to the halls of power in Tallahassee, Johnny’s journey explores the lines between acceptance and exploitation, isolation and love. Is Johnny a monster, an angel, or just a boy trying to live in peace? As he searches for meaning—through love, loss, betrayal, and brutal truths—Johnny must decide whether to keep hiding… or rise on his own terms. Told in vivid, lyrical prose, this tale of identity blends elements of Southern Gothic, outsider fiction, and found family stories. Boy With Wings is a powerful meditation on identity, stigma, resilience, and the quiet miracles that help us soar. Mark Mustian is the author of the novels "The Return" and "The Gendarme," the latter a finalist for the Dayton International Literary Peace Prize and shortlisted for the Saroyan International Award for Writing. It won the Florida Gold Book Award for Fiction and has been published in ten languages. The founder of the Word of South Festival of Literature and Music in Tallahassee, Florida, his new novel, "Boy With Wings," is the winner of the Grand Prize for Fiction from Next Generation Indie Book Awards and has received numerous other honors, including winning the Bronze Prize for Historical Fiction from Independent Publishers Book Awards (IPPY) and being named a finalist for the Hawthorne Award for Fiction. Out now!!!