Until the Red Swallows It All

Sometimes sinister and sometimes playful, Mason Parker's essays and vignettes attempt the nearly impossible task of capturing the true magnitude of our ecological situation. Until the Red Swallows It All tells stories of people formed by landscape and examines Oklahoma after the big fracking boom, a microcosm of something even more expansive than the open plains or seemingly endless hills. This collection is like a John Prine album or a hillbilly Walden. By veering in and out of the political, but mostly by peering through the lens of the personal, Parker's work reconciles our past with a future beyond our control, or even understanding.