Books/Fourmile
Novel · Young readers
Fourmile
A western in everything but the hats. Twelve-year-old Foster sizes up two dangerous men — the one courting his widowed mother, and the drifter who turns up to work.
The story
Twelve-year-old Foster knows in his gut that Dax Ganey, the man dating his widowed mother, is a bad seed. Then a mysterious stranger arrives at their Alabama farm, a former Army Ranger in Iraq rambling across the country, and Foster believes he has found an ally against Dax.
The stranger proves a fascinating mentor, full of wisdom and secrets. And Dax soon has reason to resent not just him and Foster but also Foster’s mother. A spurned Dax will be a dangerous enemy — but Foster is increasingly aware that the stranger is just as dangerous, if not more so.
From the author of one of the most highly acclaimed children’s survival adventures of the last decade comes this tautly wound novel reminiscent of classic westerns, about a boy caught in the middle of a clash that may turn out to be his own battle to fight.
Details
- Publisher
- Farrar Straus and Giroux
- Audience
- Ages 10 and up
- ISBN
- 9781250039958
- Modeled after
- Shane
Q&A
Watt on writing Fourmile.
What sparked your imagination for Fourmile?
The tightness of the classic westerns. He wanted a story built the same way, in a contemporary setting. Fourmile was modeled after Shane, his favorite of them.
As a kid, did you grow up with a dog in the family?
Two strays, adopted. One of them, Joe, he found in a swamp, and Joe went everywhere with him after that until he was hit by a car crossing the highway.
Gary is a father figure for Foster, but in the end he is not the person Foster thinks he is. Was he still a positive influence?
Yes. Gary mentors Foster the way he would have mentored his own son, and whatever else is true about him, the time the two of them spend together does Foster more good than harm.
What was the hardest scene to write?
The shootout at the end — the problem being how to write violence that is neither gratuitous nor secondhand.
Should Foster and Gary ever cross paths again?
Probably not. Gary is a time bomb, emotionally and mentally, and he cannot become the man Foster and Linda would need him to be.
If you liked this one
Dirt Road Home and Cottonlandia work the same territory — a boy reading adults who are not telling him everything.
Browse the books →Read next
More from the same water.
Novels for young readers, Southern fiction for grown ones, and nonfiction from the delta.
Dirt Road Home
Hal Mitchell can walk out of Hellenweiler in a few months — if the gangs let him.
Cottonlandia
A Manhattan prep-school kid is sent south for four days and learns he isn’t going home.
Alabama Moon
A boy raised in the forest loses the only person who knew he was out there.