Circling Toward Nightfall

A Novel

Dennis Must

• Publisher: Red Hen Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781636282848, 9781636282862
• eBook ISBN: 9781636282855
• Edition: 0
• Subtopic: Crime & Mystery Literature

AWARD–WINNING AUTHOR OF HUSH NOW, DON’T EXPLAIN

2014 USA BEST BOOK AWARD LITERARY FICTION FINALIST 

Dennis Must explores the boundaries of reality and myth in his final book in a series, CIRCLING TOWARD NIGHTFALL

Circling Toward Nightfall is a lyrical exploration of blood, duality, and the search for origins—a meditation on reconciling the body with the innermost self. Its narrator, Jeremiah Coombs, may be the only man on earth with two fathers. Told by Billy Coombs that he had no mother, Jeremiah later learns from his grandmother that her name was Bernadette and that she died in childbirth—despite his vivid memories of her presence in his early life.

As the mysterious neighbor “Ichabod” Ernest Tyner takes on a growing role in Jeremiah’s life, he reveals that Bernadette was a nun from the Sisters of Conscience who gave birth to Jeremiah on the banks of the Ohio River before drowning herself. When the truth of his conception comes to light, Jeremiah is seized by a patricidal urge that drives the novel toward its haunting revelation. With characters who drift in and out like echoes from another world, Circling Toward Nightfall is an enigmatic and mythic final work.

Table of contents

• FRONT COVER
• HALF-TITLE PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• CONTENTS
• PART ONE: THE BEREA CANTICEL
• PART TWO: “GOD DON’T EAT OKRA”
• PART THREE: LAFAYETTE HOTEL
• PART FOUR: THE REUNION
• ENDNOTES
• BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
• BACK COVER