Set in a bitterly benighted, mine-polluted corner of Virginia, Nitro Mountain follows a group of people bound together by alcohol, small-time crime and music. There's Leon, a hapless bass player who can embroil himself in trouble just by getting out of bed in the morning. And his would-be girlfriend, Jennifer, who's living with Arnett, the town's most dangerous thug-- and hoping Leon will help her poison him. And there's Arnett himself, a psychopath for the ages-- albeit so charming and deranged, so strikingly authentic, that he arrests the reader's attention at first sight and holds it fast. His mirror image, a singer-songwriter named Jones, has his own moral issues, though at least he's trying to be a good man. The bright if battered soul who pulls us through this story is Jennifer, a vulnerable yet strong woman struggling heroically to survive the endemic hopelessness and violence that have surrounded her since birth -- Dust jacket flap.
- ISBN13 9781101946367
- Publish Date 17 May 2016
- Publish Status Remaindered
- Out of Print 5 March 2021
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Random House USA Inc
- Imprint Knopf Books for Young Readers
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 224
- Language English