About the book, Narrow the Road 
- Genre: Southern Fiction, Literary Fiction, Coming of Age
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Pages: 306
- Publication Date: 26 August 2025
In this gripping coming-of-age odyssey, a young man’s quest to reunite his family takes him on a life-altering journey through the wilds of 1930s East Texas, where both danger and opportunity grow as thick as the pines.
With his father missing and his mother gravely ill, William Carter is struggling to keep his family’s cotton farm afloat in the face of drought and foreclosure. As his options wane, William receives a mysterious letter that claims to know his father’s whereabouts.
Together with his best friend Ollie, a mortician in training, William sets out to find his father and bring him home to set things right. But before the boys can complete their quest, they must navigate the labyrinth of the Big Thicket, some of the country’s most uncharted, untamed land. Along the way they encounter eccentric backwoods characters of every order, running afoul of murderers, bootleggers, and even the legendary Bonnie and Clyde.
But the danger is doubled when the boys agree to take on a medicine show runaway named Lena, eliciting the ire of the show’s leader, the nefarious con man Doctor Downtain. As William, Ollie, and Lena race to uncover the clues and find William’s father, Downtain is closing in on them, readying to make good on his violent reputation. With the clock ticking, William must decide where his loyalties lie and how far he’s willing to go for the people he loves.
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About the author, James Wade 
James Wade is the award-winning author of Hollow Out the Dark, Beasts of the Earth, All Things Left Wild, and River, Sing Out. He is the youngest novelist to win two Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, and a recipient of the MPIBA’s prestigious Reading the West Award. His work has appeared in Texas Highways, Writers’ Digest, and numerous additional publications. James lives and writes in the Texas Hill Country with his wife and children.
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My Thoughts 
James Wade has a rare knack for writing landscapes that feel lived in—haunted, even. His latest novel, Narrow the Road, doesn’t just take place in Depression-era East Texas; it breathes there. The dirt feels redder, the air heavier, and the people more worn down by life than lifted by it. That’s the first thing that struck me: the place itself isn’t just backdrop—it’s the pulse under the prose.
What’s remarkable about Wade’s evolution as a writer is how he’s learned to make that atmosphere serve the story without ever letting it smother it. His prose is taut but musical, the kind of writing that knows when to linger and when to move. Every sentence seems shaped by the weight of the times—bleak, yes, but never dull, never flat. There’s momentum here, the kind that sneaks up on you. You start reading for the language and suddenly realize you’ve been carried three chapters deep without coming up for air.
This book moves the way real life moves when choices are scarce and hope is a luxury. It’s not a gallop; it’s a steady, purposeful walk into whatever comes next. The characters—men and women alike—live with the kind of quiet desperation that feels heartbreakingly familiar. Wade writes them without judgment, just empathy and precision, as if he’s holding a lantern for them while they figure out whether to run or rest.
He’s been compared to the great chroniclers of the American undercurrent—Steinbeck, McCarthy, Grubb—but what separates Wade from those heavyweights is his restraint. He doesn’t wallow in the mud or linger on the dust. He gives you just enough—the smell of rain before it breaks, the rough edge of a prayer half-remembered—and trusts you to fill in the rest. That confidence makes the world he builds more immediate, more human.
The result is a novel that hums with tension but never forgets its heart. Wade’s sense of justice and mercy, his understanding of grief and endurance, give the story an emotional ballast that keeps it grounded even in its darkest turns. He’s writing about survival, but also about grace—the tiny kind that hides inside ordinary acts.
Narrow the Road feels like the work of a writer at full command of his gifts. It’s intimate and immense, brutal and quietly hopeful.
Goes well with: black coffee gone cold, a record that crackles between songs, and the sound of wind pushing through pine trees just before the rain.
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“And through these ages untold, the river did act as the lifeblood of all those things alongside it.
James Wade lives and writes in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Jordan. He has had twenty short stories published in various literary magazines and journals. He is the winner of the Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Contest and a finalist of the Tethered by Letters Short Fiction Contest. All Things Left Wild is his debut novel.
After an attempted horse theft goes tragically wrong, sixteen-year-old Caleb Bentley is on the run with his mean-spirited older brother across the American Southwest at the turn of the twentieth century. Caleb’s moral compass and inner courage will be tested as they travel the harsh terrain and encounter those who have carved out a life there, for good or ill.
James Wade lives and writes in Austin, Texas, with his wife and daughter. He has had twenty short stories published in various literary magazines and journals. He is the winner of the Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Contest and a finalist of the Tethered by Letters Short Fiction Contest. All Things Left Wild is his debut novel
My first reaction to James Wade’s novel All Things Left Wild was that the writing was both vivid and incredibly lyrical. I could have easily read three hundred pages of James Wade just describing the scenery and been completely satisfied. But this is not a nature guide, it’s a novel, and the story was as powerful as the opening scene-setting was beautiful.
