front cover of Son of Amity
Son of Amity
Peter Nathaniel Malae
Oregon State University Press, 2018
Three lives on the verge of ruin intersect in the small Oregon town of Amity: Pika, a half-Samoan ex-con from California, seeks to deliver justice to his sister’s rapist; Michael, a five-tour Iraq War Marine, faces the cracked mirror of his own embattled soul; and Sissy, a recent convert to Catholicism, must resist the lure of ruthless self-judgment and discover what love is.  

Determined to escape the past, these characters find themselves sharing the same torn-down house, bordering tweaker poverty and bucolic wine country. Violence and penance, family and legacy, recidivism and post-traumatic stress disorder linger with the heavy rain of desperation. At the center of this storm is five-year old Benji, whose wide-eyed energy and openhearted faith could show all of them how to still be saved.  
 
In this unforgettable tale, award-winning author Peter Nathaniel Malae explores the depths of human pain and trauma with genuine cultural authority. Son of Amity is a novel whose voices cry out with truth and vulnerability, never betraying that slight tilt toward hope needed to make the long, hard trek to tomorrow.

 
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front cover of Teach the Free Man
Teach the Free Man
Stories
Peter Nathaniel Malae
Ohio University Press, 2007

The twelve stories in Teach the Free Man mark the impressive debut of Peter Nathaniel Malae. The subject of incarceration thematically links the stories, yet their range extends beyond the prison’s barbed wire and iron bars. Avoiding sensationalism, Malae exposes the heart and soul in those dark, seemingly inaccessible corridors of the human experience.

The stories, often raw and startlingly honest, are distinguished by the colloquial voices of California’s prison inmates, who, despite their physical and cultural isolation, confront dilemmas with which we can all identify: the choice to show courage against peer pressure; the search for individual rights within a bureaucracy; and the desperate desire for honor in the face of great sacrifice. These stories present polished and poetic examples of finding something redemptive in the least among us.

The book’s epigraph by W. H. Auden, from which the book takes its title, exemplifies the spirit of these dynamic stories:
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start.
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

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