Selected as a "Top 10 Fall New Book Release" by theyoungfolks.com, God's Naked Will and other Sacrilege is an absorbing debut collection of stories, bold, risky, and entertaining--at turns erotic and hysterical--that are visionary, yet anchored in the details of ordinary, blue-collar life in the south of the United States. Within these pages faith collides with schizophrenia and demon possession, incest and deformity, devoted virgins and hired studs, illness and addiction, alternative life-styles and nude weddings, sexual choices and preferences, masturbation and voyeurism, cock-fights and executions, ministers and deacons. Each story packs a mean, unrelenting flurry of gut punches that prove to be brutal and unrelenting. From the precipitous bluffs of Mt. Nebo, to the treacherous inner city of Chicago, from the simmering waters of Hot Springs to the Kahlua colored waters of the Hatchie-Coon bottoms of the St. Francis River, from the death chamber at the Cummins Correctional Unit to a swingers resort on the Yucatan Peninsula, from frog races at the Toad Suck Ferry to cockfights in Puerto Moreles, from the reality of now to the surreal of the after-life, readers will find themselves transported through time and space and feel the primal urges, the carnal yearnings, and the spiritual convictions of these characters as their faith, heavy as a curse upon them, guides them through their ideas of right and wrong, of morality and depravity, of sexual release and moral responsibility.
About the Author: C.D. Mitchell was born in Paragould, Arkansas, the oldest of 6 children and raised on a 12 acre chicken farm a stone's throw from where his folks now lives on Rockingchair Road. While living on the farm he experienced milking cows, churning butter, butchering and sugar curing pork, picking and cooking poke salad, raising a garden and canning jams and jellies, tomatoes and relish. After living a short while in Michigan and Illinois, his family returned to Arkansas where he completed high school and then attended the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville where he obtained a BSBA in finance and banking, and completed requirements for his Juris Doctorate in December, 1987. In 2002 he returned to graduate school to follow his dream of becoming a writer. His second year at McNeese State University was interrupted when his son began treatment for leukemia at ST. Jude's Medical Center in Memphis. CD transferred to the University of Memphis to be closer to his son during his treatments, and completed his MFA with concentrations in fiction and creative nonfiction. While at Memphis CD served as the managing editor for "The Pinch," the literary journal published by the MFA program. After a short legal career where he experienced the courtroom as a prosecutor, a defense attorney, and a special judge, CD began his own construction business. He has worked with the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads as a tracklayer and bridge-man, owned his own BBQ stand, raised quarter horses and coonhounds, canned homegrown pickles and tomatoes, and finished with a professional boxing record of 45-5 with 38 knockouts. CD also worked on the locks and dams of the Arkansas River from the Toad Suck Ferry to Ozark. He has been a pallbearer five times and a groom four times, but has never been a best-man. Proud to be called a southern writer, CD takes great pleasure in writing about his home state of Arkansas, the south, and the wonderful people who live there. His stories and essays have been published in several nationally and internationally recognized print and online journals that include The Appalachee Review, The Southeast Review, Natural Bridge, River Teeth, Big Muddy, Redux, The Evansville Review, Story South, Real South, The Arkansas Review, and others. His work has been included in several anthologies, with his story "The Execution" included in a crime anthology titled Crime After Crime published in 2012 in the United Kingdom.