Edan Benn Epstein

Subterranean Green Edan Benn Epstein

Late one night a mysterious stranger encounters a drunken homeless man found sleeping on the sidewalk and forcibly takes him to a nearby motel. The stranger tells the drunkard that he must follow him for 24 hours after which he is free to resume the life that he had if he wishes. What begins as a mystery unfolds as the story of three lost souls over the course of twenty years whose lives are intertwined with each other in ways that are only revealed over the fullness of time. The homeless man is Jeter Hanbone, sex addict and alcoholic. Karen Hogg is the lonely woman who carries his child. Victor Podgorny is the mathematics genius who works as a dishwasher. Like many of Epstein's novels, Subterranean Green is a spiritually redemptive story of descent and salvation, of lives filled with both awe and ennui and with a magic touch that transcends and elevates the most ordinary of people, places, and things.