Swimming in Sky — Inman Majors

Twenty-five-year-old Jason Sayer has lost his nerve. An unemployed Vanderbilt graduate who's temporarily taken up residence with his mother and her live-in boyfriend, Jason is adrift in the summery haze of suburban Knoxville. The narrative spans four months in Jason's life shortly after his return from a disillusioning journey to Australia in search of himself. Compounding his sense of undefined gloom is a recent ill-timed acid trip that has left him estranged from old friends, wary of their intentions toward him. Two generations off the farm, living in what he calls a “strip mall world,” Jason grapples with his past as he searches for a way to make sense of the present and recapture his old confidence.

In a witty, subversive voice, Jason traces the limits of the frayed formality of the New South, casting light on youthful aspirations lost and found. Fast-paced and funny, Majors's debut novel explores a twenty-something's reading of fractured family relationships, the raveling edges of friendships, and what's left of traditional spirituality in his life.