Querying

Shane is currently querying his debut novel, The Danger Is to the Body and It Can Kill.

The novel was a finalist for the 2025 Big Moose Prize from Black Lawrence Press and was longlisted for the C&R Press 2024 Fiction Award. The full manuscript is available upon request.

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Your ancestors built a hideous machine.
Your labor feeds it to this day.
What will you do?

This is the question Laurence must answer as he clears animal carcasses from New England wilderness blighted by a mysterious industrial disaster. Haunted by the brutality underpinning American society, as well as his culpability in it, Laurence sets his sights on “the machine.” This bloated amalgam of parts and ideas began gestating when the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock and its shadow now darkens every corner of the earth. To this miscreation Laurence assigns responsibility for all the death at his feet. He fancies himself a revolutionary, destined for a hero’s end setting fire to the machine. But as the time to act draws near, he is confronted by the fragility of his conviction and the childishness of the belief that one man can change the world. Joining him on this journey are a devout elder who clutches her name like a terrible secret, a young woman who wishes to bargain with the machine, and a lost dog who may not be what she seems. Wrestling with hope, rage, and responsibility, these guilty souls must dig deep into America’s angry soil for the answers they seek, down to the jagged bones buried beneath.

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