Book Title: Boy With Wings

Series: n/a

Author: Mark Mustian

Publication Date: March 15th, 2025

Publisher: Koehler Books

Pages: 322

Genre: Literary Fiction / Historical Fiction

Twitter Handles: @markmustian @cathiedunn @marylschmidt

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Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2025/04/blog-tour-boy-with-wings-by-mark-mustian.html

Book Title and Author Name: 

Boy With Wings

by Mark Mustian

Blurb:

 “A brilliant fever dream of a novel, a haunting coming of age story reminiscent of both Franz Kafka and Charles Dickens.”

~ Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of The Jackal’s Mistress

What does it mean to be different?

When Johnny Cruel is born with strange appendages on his back in the 1930s South, the locals think he’s a devil. Determined to protect him, his mother fakes his death, and they flee. Thus begins Johnny’s years-long struggle to find a place he belongs.

From a turpentine camp of former slaves to a freak show run by a dwarf who calls herself Tiny Tot and on to the Florida capitol building, Johnny finds himself working alongside other outcasts, struggling to answer the question of his existence. Is he a horror, a wonder, or an angel? Should he hide himself to live his life?

Following Johnny’s journey through love, betrayal, heartbreak, and several murders, Boy With Wings is a story of the sacrifices and freedom inherent in making one’s own special way-and of love and the miracles that give our lives meaning.

Reading the Classics

I never wanted to be a writer. It wasn’t a childhood dream—I wanted to be a lawyer, and I became one for forty years. But I’ve always liked to read, beginning with the Hardy Boys and moving on to The Lord of the Rings and its ilk. I was big into Dune. I was in advanced English classes through high school, and we read fairly widely: Life on the Mississippi, Siddartha, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Slaughterhouse Five, Beowulf, Romeo & Juliet, Lord of the Flies. I can still recall many of the books we read in my freshman English class in college: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Stranger, Deliverance, Candide (all of which I hated, except for Deliverance). The students in that class seemed to me mostly puffed-up snobs. I still recall my mandatory conference with the professor, a dead ringer for Paul Lynde, in which his message to me seemed to be that some dreams couldn’t be realized. I was a business major. I wanted a “B” and to move on with things.

About ten years into my legal career, driving alone on Florida’s highways and perhaps in an early midlife crisis, I decided that I wanted to try a few things besides practicing law: I wanted to run for public office, I wanted to teach, and I wanted to try and write a book. I eventually did all three, teaching two years at Tallahassee Community College (that was enough to cure me of that), serving on the Tallahassee City Commission for ten years (I later described this as a fit of insanity), and writing what became The Return. I had no idea what I was doing, an act I later saw described as the equivalent of waking up one morning and deciding to start practicing thoracic surgery. But I did it, I discovered that I liked writing, and I felt like I had modest talent. I’ve kept on to this day.

Along the way, I ran across a list of the “100 novels you should have read by the time you’re thirty,” or something to that effect. Having not read most of them, I decided to whack away. These were mostly 20^th century American works, and it was interesting to see what seemed to hold up and what didn’t. I think the period of your life in which you read certain books affects your appreciation of them, and some of these (like those I read in the freshman English class) I wouldn’t have appreciated if I’d read them at 19. A few of my favorites:

• I, Claudius, by Robert Graves
• Augustus, by John Williams
• The Magus, by John Fowles (bizarre, but good)
• An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser

A few I found a bit more dated:

• The Bridge at Sun Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder
• Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler
• The Good Soldier, by Ford Maddox Ford

Others will have other opinions, I’m sure. I’m grateful for the time, opportunity and interest to be able to read for pleasure. It’s what’s made me a writer. It’s a big world out there.

Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/mdxEoR

Author Bio:

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 out in 2025.

Author Links:

Website:  https://markmustian.com/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/@markmustian

Facebook: https://facebook.com/markmustianauthor

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/mark-mustian

Bluesky: https://markmustian.bsky.social

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Mark-T.-Mustian/author/B0CSF8JY2Y 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3463600.Mark_Mustian