About the author: Rebecca Clarren has been writing about the rural West for nearly twenty years. Her journalism, for which she has won the Hillman Prize and an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship, has appeared in such publications as Mother Jone, High Country News, the Nation, and Salon.com. Kickdown, shortlisted for the PEN/Bellwether Prize, is her first novel. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and two young sons.

Image description: The cover illustration shows a landscape with a slightly cloudy sky. The title is boldly displayed in white letters, and a quote from the Washington Post praising the book. The author's name is displayed in the center of the cover in white letters. In the bottom right corner, there is a yellow label highlighting that it's a finalist for PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.