In 1980’s Oregon, Smokey is figuring out how to survive childhood with a young mom who is increasingly desperate in her search for love. As their mother’s boyfriends come and go, Smokey aches for the comfort and safety their mother can never quite provide. When a dangerous new man moves into the house, Smokey seeks refuge in the nearby forests–finding comfort as they give themselves over to the strength and beauty of the natural world.
The novel was published by Torrey House Press in April 2024.
Early praise:
“A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest“ by Charlie J. Stephens is utterly gorgeous. I wish I had this book growing up, I wish my mother had this book, and her mother, and everyone who has ever had to turn their pain into meaning. This novel feels like creating in the lushness of the forest, where all our past memories, both difficult and joyful, greet us animals in the night. —KALI FAJARDO-ANSTINE, National Book Award Finalist and bestselling author of Woman of Light
“A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest“ by Charlie J. Stephens hands to the reader the heartbeat of the earth and the heartbeat of every living creature on it. Following eight-year-old Smokey, this novel—with its precise and measured prose—is a breathtaking look into the interconnectedness of people, animals, and landscape. Charlie has written a pulsing novel filled with so much love and tenderness.
—MORGAN TALTY, National Bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez
I don’t know when I’ve ever been this excited by a new voice. Smokey, the narrator of Charlie J. Stephens’ A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest, does whatever it takes to stay alive at a time and place in which the adults can’t be relied upon and plants and animals are the most sustaining guardians, Every moment here is loving, tough, and incandescent, and I know I’m never going to forget this book because I’m going to keep coming back to it. It’s stunning. —PAUL LISICKY, author of Later: My Life at the Edge of the World
“Stephens reveals a secret and unseen world, sensitized to the dark magic of poverty and neglect in woodlands, where being othered is at once the cage and the key.”
—JONATHAN T. BAILEY, author of When I Was Red Clay
At times moody and violent, other times tender and curious, Charlie J.Stephens’ debut novel A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest hits hard; it’s a story about anger, about self-discovery, about abuse, about refuge, but ultimately about survival. —TOMAS MONIZ, author of All Friends Are Necessary
A Wounded Deer Leaps the Highest is a vivid and compelling novel that captures the lush and dark landscape of Oregon and the sharp edges of a young person’s will to survive poverty and violence. Charlie J. Stephens has carved their story into my memory with their exquisite and shocking prose. I couldn’t look away. Theirs is a story I’ll not soon forget. —CHELSIA RICE, bookseller at Montana Book Company
Charlie J. Stephens 