Compared to the work of Carver, Proulx, Matthiessen, and Faulkner, "Twisted Tree" has made an already acclaimed author shine anew with deserved praise. Meyers' work has been dazzling readers since his debut, but here they find a writer who is, as noted by the "Rapid City Journal", "on the brink of a breakthrough". Hayley Jo Zimmerman is gone. And the people of small-town Twisted Tree must come to terms with their loss, their place in it, and the secrets they all carry. As one girl's story unfolds through the stories of those who knew her, Hayley Jo's absence recasts the lives of others and connects them, her death rooting itself into the community in astonishingly violent and tender ways. And so Kent Meyers, one of the best contemporary writers on the American West, offers a tribute to the powerful effect one person's life can have on everyone she knew.