Introduction

Longlisted for the 2018 National Book Awards 
Shortlisted for the 2018 Aspen Words Literary Prize
A New York Times Editor's Choice 
Time's 10 Best Fiction Books of 2018
Library Journal's Best Books of 2018

The searing, unforgettable story of a young girl's resilience, by the award-winning author of Prayers for the Stolen

Pearl's mother took her away from her family just weeks after she was born, and drove off to central Florida determined to begin a new life for herself and her daughter--in the parking lot next to a trailer park. Pearl grew up in the front seat of their '94 Mercury, while her mother lived in the back. Despite their hardships, mother and daughter both adjusted to life, making friends with the residents of the trailers and creating a deep connection to each other. All around them, Florida is populated with gun owners--those hunting alligators for sport, those who want to protect their families, and those who create a sense of danger. 

Written in a gorgeous lyric all its own, Gun Love is the story of a tough but optimistic young woman growing up in contemporary America, in the midst of its harrowing love affair with firearms.

Editorial Review

An Amazon Best Book of March 2018: “My mother was a cup of sugar. You could borrow her anytime.” Filled with sayings that bolster the heart and then kick it, Gun Love is a story about a single mother and her daughter, the car that they live in, and a trailer park in Florida that fills with guns through gun trafficking—“In no time the weapons became stacks of metal rising in layers on both beds.” It skates between funny and fierce, heartbreaking and shocking, as these two women navigate a world where guns are as ho-hum as asking a neighbor for flour. But as one character observes, “once you get a gun, you’re at 99.6 degrees Fahrenheit all the time” and the minute a gun enters their Mercury, their lives will never be the same. Jennifer Clement is a talented writer, with prose that made me jitter with excitement and fear for the gun love embedded within her novel and beyond. --Al Woodworth

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