Miles is a Vietnam vet who's worried he's going to lose his job and his tenuous grasp on a stable life because of a fight he had with a co-worker over some steroids. His PTSD and struggles to control his steroid-fuelled violent tendencies complicate life with his girlfriend, Shelby, a stripper who only occasionally seems to have the proverbial heart of gold. She certainly seems to possess more kindness and generosity than her brother, Wylie, who's currently on the run after being implicated in the deaths of two local oxycodone dealers and has their relatives on his tail. When Wylie kidnaps his sister and holes up in Miles's country lair, it is, frankly, threatening to become a bit too much for steroid-addled Miles to handle. Frank Bill's world is as wild and rollicking as ever, punctuated with uproarious event after uproarious event. But in Back to the Dirt, he goes deeper than wall-to-wall brawl-with Miles, he takes us back to the experiences overseas that stripped the innocence and optimism from the heartland dream; with Shelby, he shows us that you didn't have to travel to Vietnam to see real darkness. But still, even in this benighted state, there's the dirt to come back to. And maybe, just maybe, Bill shows, that can be enough.

Frank Bill is back with a gritty, wrenching novel from deep inside the traumas of a broken American heartland.

About the Author
Frank Bill is the New York Times bestselling author of The Ravaged, with Norman Reedus; the novels The Savage and Donnybrook, the latter of which was turned into a film in 2018; and the story collection Crimes in Southern Indiana, one of GQ's favorite books of 2011 and a Daily Beast best debut of 2011. He lives and writes in southern Indiana.


Book Information
ISBN 9780374534431
Author Frank Bill
Format Paperback
Page Count 336
Imprint Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc
Publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc
Weight(grams) 240g
Dimensions(mm) 189mm * 127mm * 22mm