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Kraus’ follow-up to Whalefall (2023) explores the same deeply emotional themes, this time in WWI France. Private Bagger has used his wits to stay alive in the trenches as a latrine and grave digger. He and four other misfits are asked to stay behind in order to “take care” of a suffering soldier lying in the dangerous no-man's land between them and the Germans. However, it is not a soldier they find screaming—it is an angel, fallen from heaven and stuck in barbed wire. As the men travel to rejoin their unit, carrying the angel, each is mesmerized by her light and tempted by her power. She could save them all or lead to their deaths. The book unfolds like a chant, in short paragraphs each beginning with the word and, and readers will quickly fall under Bagger’s narrative spell as they see the visceral and gruesome toll war takes on the entire planet. Is Bagger going to survive through a miracle or by luck? A brilliant novel that will encourage its readers to live their best lives, despite the horrors that surround them. For fans of John Milas' The Militia House (2023) and thought-provoking tales that sow discomfort through story and narrative structure, such as Agustina Bazterrica's The Unworthy (2025).

Publishers Weekly
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Kraus (Whale Fall) delivers a vivid tale, composed of a single sentence, about an angel’s appearance on a French battlefield near the end of WWI. American infantryman and card sharp Cyril Bagger is ordered by ambitious Major General Reis to investigate the source of an unearthly shrieking that’s driving members of their company insane. Dispatched with Cyril are four other misfits—innocent, underage Arno; brutish Popkin; “squirmy, squirrelish” Goodspeed; and seriously shell-shocked Veck. The quintet finds an angel in the form of a Madonna figure, wrapped in barbed wire and emitting a “breathtaking” beacon of light. Determined not to turn the angel over to Reis, whom they assume will use her to advance his career, they desert, ducking artillery fire and bickering as they vie for the angel’s attention, believing she’s capable of granting their wishes. Kraus ramps up the tension with the relentless cadence of his prose, offering no breaks from the action but finding room for glorious lyrical flights (“and so Bagger sits up with vision aswirl and shoos away the filthy pelt of air, the pigeon-gray smoke and eyeball-white fog”). With this vigorous narrative, Kraus breathes new life into the war novel. Agent: Richard Abate, 3 Arts. (July)