America teeters on the edge. As Donald Trump rallies his base for reelection, paranoia surges—Covid spreads, militias rise, and whispers of a stolen election grow louder. In Arkansas, firebrand preacher-turned-Governor Chick Hecklethorne faces a challenge from Colonel Bedford Stuart Jackson, a Civil War–obsessed reactionary running under the People’s Party banner with dreams of a “New Confederacy of the West.” When wealthy liberal Bingham Proctor Jr. jumps into the race to split the vote, the stage is set for a surreal political showdown. Caught in the chaos is Waymon Reo Wilde, a haunted sniper turned revolutionary, and Jackson’s wife—a former sex worker who delivers a child that upends everything.
In The Great Awakening, Donald Hays delivers a sharp, darkly comic vision of a fractured nation veering off the rails—where power, delusion, and desperation collide in unforgettable ways.

Praise for The Great Awakening

“I haven’t spent a lot of time in Arkansas, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Donald Hays’s hilarious new novel—The Great Awakening—is about as much fun as a sane person can have there. Satire doesn’t come any better.”

—Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls and the North Bath trilogy of Fool novels

“Donald Hays has been a writer I’ve long revered, and in this new novel, he again shows why he is one of our America’s best writers. The Great Awakening is often hilarious but, as with the highest level of satire, there is a deeper impulse, in this case a fierce reckoning with the hustlers and buffoons who profit by pandering to a country’s worst impulses. Brilliant and timely, The Great Awakening is a novel that deserves a wide and appreciative audience.”

—Ron Rash, author of The Caretaker

“If Robert Coover, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo and Flannery O’Connor had gotten together to write a novel about the age of Trump, they just might have produced Donald Hays’s The Great Awakening. Con artists, insurrectionists, hookers, preachers and scores of madmen populate these pages. But every now and then, they surprise us and themselves by rising above the insanity and proving themselves capable of goodness and love. This is a great book, both deadly serious and wildly funny, and I have never read anything else quite like it. Donald Hays is a genius. I am awe-struck.”

—Steve Yarbrough, author of Stay Gone Days

“This masterpiece by Donald Hays says everything that needs saying about this broken time in this broken country. A beautifully written book about ugliness. A terrifying, hilarious, brutally honest all-American howl.”

—Susan Perabo, author of The Fall of Lisa Bellow

“For a nation that needs, more than ever, to open its eyes, Donald Hays’ The Great Awakening arrives at a perfect time. At once a comic masterpiece, it’s also a ripping political satire of a contemporary Arkansas gubernatorial race featuring a cast of rapscallions, criminals, pimps, professors, militiamen, prostitutes, retired football players and government agents. And Hays is as fearless with these characters as he is with his plot and his language. And did I mention funny? This is exactly the novel we need for this wild new century, and I thank Donald Hays for waking me up in the best way, with laughter.”

—Tom Franklin, author of Crooked Letter

“Donald Hays’s beautiful The Great Awakening is irreverent, honest, timely, and hysterical. I’ve not read such a novel since the last of Barry Hannah’s works. I’m not sure what’s in the Arkansas water, but it’s certainly a boon.”

—George Singleton, author of You Want More

“The Great Awakening is a wicked, unflinching satire that brings a shock of understanding to these inexplicable times. Hays writes like it matters. This novel, a horror comedy exposing the underbelly of the far and not so far right, the broken machinery of our elections, and the all-or-nothing stakes, is essential reading for anyone who cares, thinks, and needs to laugh.”

—Sabina Murray, author of The Human Zoo and Valiant Gentlemen