Atlas Falls to Earth Ashley — Christopher Leach

Set over three months, October, November, and December, Atlas Falls to Earth is a literary novel about a small, diffident boy named Atlas, who after his thirteenth birthday believes he has grown a set of gossamer wings. The only problem is the wings do not work; they seem to have no purpose. Fearful of his father Jason, a disgruntled blue-collar worker, and slightly apprehensive of Jason's good-natured girlfriend Alex, Atlas spends his afternoons in the woods and swamps around his home, desperately trying to fly, so he may escape his lonely and oftentimes troubling life in Eastern North Carolina. At the same time he begins reading a book entitled Misadventures in Being, a strange fable about two woodland creatures named Bunny and Munk and a story, which gradually begins to parallel Atlas's life. Throughout the larger narrative, Atlas befriends a host of unique characters: Leonard, the eccentric school librarian; Verla, the pragmatic school nurse; and Santa Claus, an escaped convict, whose harrowing advice underscores Atlas's final attempt to use his wings. Inspired by great literary works such as John Knowles's A Separate Peace and William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Atlas Falls to Earth is a Southern gothic tragedy examining what it means to be a boy too old to Trick-or-Treat or believe in Santa Claus but too young to fully comprehend the existential angst of adulthood.