We are pleased to announce the official publication of Caleb Caudell’s fourth book, THE QUARRYMEN, a work of omniphonic Midwestern maximalism. The story is simple: a quarry worker in the Midwest recently returned from the city after failing to find success as a musician attacks a fellow worker he believes has slept with his girlfriend. He leaves him fighting for life at the edge of the quarry. The town is stunned. Decades later, his son finds his diary. But what emerges out of Caleb’s rollicking prose is anything but simple and there is almost endless material for questioning, analysis and pondering among Caleb’s classic themes of male anxiety, dead-end jobs, dead-end philosophy and the nature of artistic talent and ambition.
Caudell’s fans will recognise a continuity with his previous work, but THE QUARRYMEN represents an ambitious departure. Caleb strives for and hits the heights of Faulkner, Bellow, Llosa, and other masters of 20th century modernism. With all due respect this book blows a certain recent Hungarian Nobel winner out of the water. THE QUARRYMEN is part murder mystery, part love story, part essay collection, part meditation on the nature of truth and memory but above all a depiction of small town life proving that even the deepest of backwaters contain the full range of human multitudes.
Novelist Ross Barkan has called THE QUARRYMEN “Probably the novel I’m most excited about for 2026, beyond my own.”
Justin Isis from Neo-Passeism writes “we consider him an obviously superior prose stylist to the vast talentless mass of Teju Cole, Ottessa Moshfegh, Brandon Taylor, Tao Lin, Ben Lerner and the like.”
Caleb himself has said, “Far be it from me to proclaim this confidently, but I don’t think there’s a book quite like this, with this blend of working class, rural setting/atmosphere and high modernist style. Maybe Faulkner, but this book goes farther in its reflexivity and range of references.”
Caleb’s first novel, The Neighbor, was shortlisted in the Debut category of the Indiana Author’s Awards 2022, and THE QUARRYMEN is a much more accomplished and ambitious work. The difference is in the order of the magnitude between Dubliners and Ulysses. In a just world, THE QUARRYMEN would make Caleb famous.
On a personal note, I almost cried at the ending, on my fourth read-through, and I never cry, as a matter of principle. I was honoured to work with Caleb on shaping this quarry block of a novel into its final version and I hope you will join me in wishing him a Happy 40th Birthday today and many happy returns of the day!
THE QUARRYMEN is available through the Bonfire website here
For those overseas or who prefer it, the book is available through Amazon here. Kindle E-book coming soon, keep an eye out for the announcement.
THE QUARRYMEN can also be ordered through any good bookshop anywhere in the world. We encourage you to support your local brick-and-mortar bookshop.