More Like Not Running Away is the story of a boy in danger of losing his family and maybe his mind. Levi Revel is in awe of his father, Everest, a majestic dreamer, a master builder, and a man with a violent, secret past that still haunts the family. As the family moves from state to state, Levi hears solace in the voice of God, a voice that sends him to preach from treetops and roofs. But as the family begins to fall apart and Levi enters adolescence, he begins hearing more troubling things – other voices, terrifying sounds, warnings.
More Like Not Running Away takes readers across America, through the eyes and ears of a child who can't run away because his world is running away from him. From a boy lost in a world of imaginary voices and chilling destruction to a young man who can rebuild steeples, laugh, and climb, the story Levi tells is the triumph of persistence and reaching out over moments of isolation and despair.
"Shepherd writes beautifully about labor...what work takes and what work gives are joyously rendered in his book,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “…How refreshing to come across a book that raises such questions in an honest manner and refuses to make easy judgments or simple conclusions. More Like Not Running Away reminds us that -- no matter how hard you try -- gaps cannot always be made flush.”
A review by the American Library Association's Booklist describes More Like Not Running Away as an “…extraordinary first novel about the blood ties that bind fathers and sons packs such emotional power that reading it is like sustaining repeated blows to the heart. And, appropriately, for a novel about voices, the first-person voice of the narrator Levi is exquisitely and unforgettably rendered as the boy recounts his search for self and the redemption of silence."
Shepherd is a Writer in Residence and former Kingsbury Fellow at Florida State University, where he earned a Ph.D. with distinction. His work has appeared in Crazyhorse, Fiction, Omni, Prairie Schooner, William and Mary Review, Folio, Pacific Review, US Catholic, St. Anthony Messenger, Portland Review, the Quarterly, Beloit Fiction, Maryland Review, and elsewhere. He has served as senior editor of International Quarterly, and as faculty advisor to award-winning college newspapers and literary magazines.
Shepard has taught college classes in creative writing, magazine and newspaper writing, and modern literature. He speaks on a variety of topics including, faith in fiction and the imagination.
More Like Not Running Away was a finalist for the Associated Writing Programs Award in The Novel, The Bakeless Prize, and twice for the James Jones prizes.
Ranked one of the best comprehensive colleges in the Southeast by U.S. News and World Report and The Princeton Review, Belmont Abbey College celebrates excellence and virtue steeped in its 129-year Catholic Benedictine heritage. The liberal arts College is home to students from over 28 states and 11 countries and welcomes everyone from any background or tradition committed to this vision of excellence and virtue. The campus consists of the College, the Monastery and the Abbey Basilica, which can be found on its sprawling 650 acres of picturesque landscape.
Just minutes from Charlotte, NC, the nation’s second largest banking center, Belmont Abbey College offers students numerous internship opportunities and career placement.
The College believes in development of the whole person – mind, body and spirit. By offering a wide array of clubs and activities including Division II athletics, theatre, publications, and study abroad, Belmont Abbey College invests in the personal growth of its students.
Founded in 1876, the College celebrates its heritage and is inspired by the Benedictine monastic tradition. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the College and Abbey Basilica greet thousands of visitors each year.
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