Robert Gwaltney is one of the most talented authors in the South. His first book, The Cicada Tree, published by Mercer Press, earned him Georgia’s prestigious award for 2023 Author of the Year for First Novel. His second book, Sing Down the Moon, coming in March 2026, is as southern gothic as Flannery O’Connor’s typewriter. It is a story with depth, painted with fat over lean, an extraordinary story with elements of magical realism.

Damascus is an ancient fig tree on an island off the coast of Georgia called Good Hope. Most southerners are familiar with fig trees. Until a few years ago, I had one in my yard. When ripe, the fruit is sweet, plump, and can be eaten plucked straight from the tree. I remember my mama making fig preserves when I was young. I would stuff hot biscuits with butter and preserves and eat them with delight. They were delicious and addictive.  

Damascus is huge and magical, a tree that entices souls from across the river. When I envision the tree’s roots, I see tentacles bulging from the soil, reaching into a marsh of both good and evil. It is a tree deserving of its name. Damascus. It produces Sara figs. Such an innocent sounding name: Sara figs. But an addictive drug called Redemption is derived from Sara figs, the fruit of Damascus, the drug of the marsh.

Leontyne Skye lives in this place. She is a young teenage girl who has no choice but to watch her mother decay and disappear, bit by bit, one vital part at a time. Hair and teeth. Even memory.

It isn’t easy for Leontyne to watch Redemption destroy so many. And in this marsh, it sure isn’t easy to tell the truth from a downright lie.

This beautifully told story is unlike anything I have read. It bleeds into the boundaries of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Anthony Doerr, and Alice Hoffman. If it were a painting it would hang in the company of Marc Chagall, Vincent van Gogh, and Ivan Albright.

Sing Down the Moon is a masterpiece, and Robert Gwaltney is a master storyteller.

Brenda Sutton Rose