FRIDAY FICTION / CANTINA PSALMS, A RIOT OF A NOVEL

 Author Thomas Shess along Tice Creek in San Francisco’s East Bay hills.

“Cantina Psalms is author Thomas Shess’s debut novel, and I’ll tell you this: Mr. Shess colors outside the lines. His command of the city of San Francisco—its patois, its bars & restaurants, its neighborhoods, its power brokers and guttersnipes—is commendable. His characters simply jump off the page and slap you in the face. The omniscient narrator is a rascally character in his own right, a linguistic sorcerer who is adept at jeu de mots as he would be picking your pockets. The vibrant characters, the mercurial action, the author’s delicious wordplay—traversing this novel was, for me, a truly guilty-pleasure.”         

--By reviewer Eric Peterson, author of the “Dining Car” and “Sunshine Chief.”