An Atheist Christian Gunslinger

Al I herd wɘz that familyer yelin. Maga maga maga maga.

Set in a dystopian future many years after The End of Elections, everything is run by The Company and the State. Seth Hibard, a sludge farmer who lives in Hill Country, leads a life full of quiet contradictions. He is in turns shy and talkative, outgoing and awkward, and though not religious himself, he has a loving relationship with his very Christian wife, Jayn, with whom he shares a fondness for the Godly Stories, including one about Seth's biblical namesake. Seth is also fond however of an old book from before the End of Elections, An Atheist Christian Gunslinger, which speaks to a more violent side of his nature that he has kept in check.

But when his intolerant neighbors start harassing migrant farm workers who have settled in the area, Seth finds himself taking a stand. He knows that, one way or the other, more blood will be spilled.

Seth's story cannot be separated from the language he uses to tell it. He records the spiraling violence in his own unique way, his dialect and way of writing being integral parts of the world into which the reader is thrust. It is a world at once familiar and strange, a place where the basest of human impulses are set against a simple man's desire to do good.

I rekin thangz did git a litl betr beefor they went and got a hol lot wors egin.

I rekin I need tɘ ad that I treyd tɘ play mey part in that ordr ɘv thanzs tu.

North-Wales based Jerry Hunter is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, but has lived in Wales since the 1990s and since 2003 has been at Bangor University where he is currently a Professor of Welsh. He has published six novels in Welsh and a number of non-fiction and academic works, and is a past recipient of the Prose Medal at the National Eisteddfod and the Wales Book of the Year award; however this is his first published work of fiction in English.

A work of dystopian fiction set after 'The End of Elections', An Atheist Christian Gunslinger is set in a bleak vision of rural America at an unspecified point in the future where everything is run by The Company and The State. The protagonist Seth Hibard, a sludge farmer, has only received a rudimentary education. While he doesn't share his wife's strong faith, he has a strong sense of right and wrong, and when the authorities turn a blind eye to the persecution of some migrant workers he is forced to choose between doing nothing and taking matters into his own hands.

Whilst An Atheist Christian Gunslinger is something of a departure for Hunter, being his first novel in English, it bears some similarities to his 2014 post-apocalyptic Welsh language novel Ebargofiant ('Oblivion'), widely perceived at the time to be a revolutionary work in the language. Both novels coin a new, non-standard orthography based on a specific dialect: the Welsh of Caernarfonshire in the case of Ebargofiant, and a combination of English dialects found in Appalachia and the southern United States in the case of An Atheist Christian Gunslinger.

"Seth's story is one that can't be separated from the language used to tell it," explains Hunter."Using a unique kind of writing in this way forces the reader to really get inside the mind of a character. It also helps situate the reader soundly in the world I've created. Among other things, it's a creative way of exploring how languages change and evolve with time - and how language might evolve after a traumatic historical event."

"Groundbreaking, impactful and brilliant work. I truly loved this."

Manon Steffan Ros, author of The Blue Book of Nebo