Secure the Shadow

Michael Henson is the author of four books of fiction and four collections of poetry. His prize-winning collection of linked stories, Maggie Boylan (Swallow Press), has been called "an important work of art, beautifully rendered." His stories, poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in Still: The Journal, Appalachian Heritage, and Threepenny Review.

"With the soul and pen of a poet, Michael Henson writes from the fringes, asking us to stand in the shoes of society's outsiders. I hope he never stops writing these books that matter so much, and I will never stop reading them." "Michael Henson's novel Secure the Shadow is a remarkable piece of storytelling. It is a mystery and a thriller, an ode to film photography, and a beautifully crafted evocation of life before cell phones and after the advent of crack cocaine. Secure the Shadow makes a poem of its urban setting and fills every brick, alley, and abandoned shopping cart with lyric meaning. Henson moves between his characters' angles of vision with aplomb, and limns the world of the novel with the verve and grit of the best cinema verité." "Read Secure the Shadow for the beautiful language, the poetry of Henson's prose—and read it to ponder what it says about our world when people across the social spectrum are filled with such fear and rage and loneliness." (Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel)