Named a Best Book of the Year by Washington Independent Review of Books and LitReactor
An Okra Pick for Summer 2018

"One of the darkest, most compelling writerly imaginations around."-New Orleans Advocate

"The New Inheritors is the third mesmerizing historical novel by Kent Wascom . . . His style and subjects echo great Southern writers like William Faulkner and Harry Crews, continuing a tradition of recounting terrible things in deliriously beautiful language."-Tampa Bay Times

"Wascom is a careful student of history, and his portraits of America are riven with many of its seamier episodes . . . The beauty and richness of his observations and detail when he dives deep made me long for more . . . Wascom makes an art of illuminating the many ways that America's history belies the vaunted ideals on which it was founded."-Washington Independent Review of Books

"Both far-reaching in scope, but intimate in drama, The New Inheritors, through the trials of an artist and an heiress, wrestling demons of all proportions, is a gorgeous, powerful exploration of how the land and our own difficult natures define us as Americans."-LitReactor

"Wascom delivers a lyrical, emotionally charged study of life along the Gulf Coast a century past . . . The tragedy that closes Kemper and Isaac's life together comes as a swiftly onrushing surprise, as does a galloping conclusion that follows a much more languorously unfolding narrative, one that takes in wayward women, country preachers, orphanages, steaming ports, and a thousand well-observed period details. The best moments of this very good book are those in which Wascom writes with sententious but not sentimental poetry . . . Family drama and love story, Wascom's latest is evidence of an evolving talent. Look for more."-Kirkus Reviews

"Wascom's latest literary saga is his strongest yet . . . Whether describing the Gulf Coast's lush vegetation or acts of sudden brutality, Wascom's writing burns with a raw, elemental power. The story encompasses the era's white privilege and anti-immigrant stances, letting readers make the contemporary connections, while pondering what it means to be American."-Booklist

"Wascom's satisfying third novel set on the Gulf Coast (following The Blood of Heaven and Secessia) explores the intricate details that can populate a family's history . . . Wascom's writing is often melodic . . . [and] the novel is a winning blend of history and family dynamics."-Publishers Weekly

"The New Inheritors is about the building, and curdling of love . . . A lonely meditation on how humans come together and inevitably fall apart, whether through the simple passage of time or their own hubris . . . A novel where violence and beauty butt up against each other in fascinating ways."-Shelf Awareness

"Unfurling one fine sentence after another, The New Inheritors is like some magnificent dream ship from the past set to churn the waves of the present, bound for blood and beauty, and for the breaking of heads and hearts."-Laird Hunt, author of Neverhome

"The landscape, grand and melancholy, comes alive in Kent Wascom's The New Inheritors, shaping the characters and the history of the Gulf in illuminating ways, showing readers how much place and history can tell us about who we are."-Chantel Acevedo, author of The Distant Marvels and The Living Infinite

Praise for Secessia:

A Publishers Weekly Book of the Week
A Houston Chronicle Summer Pick

"[A] vivid portrait of 1862 New Orleans . . . Smoke is still rising off Kent Wascom's spectacular debut, The Blood of Heaven (2013), but this young author is already roaring back with