MATT BELL reads from his new novel SCRAPPER, with AMELIA GRAY

Scrapper (Soho Press)

In Scrapper, Kelly scavenges for scrap metal from the hundred thousand abandoned buildings in a part of Detroit known as “the zone,” an increasingly wild landscape where one day he finds something far more valuable than the copper he’s come to steal: a kidnapped boy, crying out for rescue. Briefly celebrated as a hero, Kelly secretly takes on the responsibility of avenging the boy’s unsolved kidnapping, a task that will take him deeper into the zone and into a confrontation with his own past, his long-buried trauma, memories made dangerous again. 

Praise for Scrapper:

"Scrapper is an offering to the grim phoenix rising out of the ashes of Industrial America—elegy, eulogy, and prophesy. Readers: listen and attend!"—Aaron Gwyn, author of Wynne's War and Dog on the Cross

"Scrapper is a meditative, moody work of art. It's about love and violence, hope and ruin, a kind of superhero story for adults. Matt Bell is truly gifted and his latest offers more proof that he's a writer we should all be reading."—Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver

"Matt Bell adds his song to the poetry inherent in the image of the abandoned city. Here, in his fierce second novel,Scrapper, Bell mines Detroit, the zone, with Kelly, an unforgettably rendered ruin, an 'unaccomodated man . . . a poor, bare, forked animal,' who yet amazes with his capacity to love." —Christine Schutt, author of Prosperous Friends

"In the imaginative, mysterious, and beautiful Scrapper, Matt Bell delves into the complexity of ruins: the wider American ruins and the local personal ruins. This is an evocative novel that lingers over what has been abandoned and shows us how the places we inhabit shape who we are and how we are."—Dana Spiotta, author of Stone Arabia

"A fearless and harrowing meditation on the ruination and transformation of cities and of people; but amid loss and destruction, Bell finds a strain of piercing hope. This is an extraordinary book."—Emily St. John Mandel, New York Times bestselling author of Station Eleven

"Like the very best novels, Matt Bell's dark and suspenseful Scrapper works on so many levels that it's difficult to describe in just a few words, but what I can tell you is that it's ultimately about love and death, and that people will still be reading it when all of America, not just Detroit, is crumbling under the weight of its mistakes." —Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time

Matt Bell is the author of the novel In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods, a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award, a Michigan Notable Book, and an Indies Choice Adult Debut Book of the Year Honor Recipient, as well as the winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award. His stories have appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, Conjunctions, Gulf Coast, The American Reader, and many other publications. Born in Michigan, he now teaches creative writing at Arizona State University.

Amelia Gray is the author of four books: AM/PM, Museum of the Weird, THREATS, and Gutshot. Her fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Tin House, and VICE. She lives in Los Angeles.