Ron Rindo on animal medicine, Amish life & the Packers

On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie talks with author Ron Rindo about his latest novel, Life, & Death, & Giants (St. Martin's Press). Gabriel Fisher was born an orphan, weighing eighteen pounds and measuring twenty-seven inches long. No one in Lakota, Wisconsin, knows what to make of him. He walks at eight months, communicates with animals, and seems to possess extraordinary athletic talent. But when the older brother who has been caring for him dies, Gabriel is taken in by his devout Amish grandparents who disapprove of all the attention and hide him away from the English world. But it’s hard to hide forever when you’re nearly eight feet tall. At seventeen, Gabriel is spotted working in a hay field by the local football coach. What happens next transforms not only Gabriel’s life but the lives of everyone he meets. Ron Rindo is a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. He has published one previous novel, Breathing Lake Superior, and three short story collections. He lives in Pickett, Wisconsin.