Title: And Wind Will Wash Away
Author: Jordan A. Rothacker
COMING SOON
Ten years after its first appearance, And Wind Will Wash Away deserves to be read as precisely this kind of hybrid creature: detective novel, Atlanta novel, religious novel, philosophical inquiry, erotic lament, and metaphysical joke played upon a man who believes the universe is stuffed with explanations. Rothacker’s strange, absorbing novel is, in my mind, more necessary today that it was in 2016. We have become a culture practically stuffed to our gullets with information while starving for certainty. We carry devices capable of answering almost any question, yet we find ourselves increasingly uncertain about what constitutes a fact…
The fundamental mysteries remain, the important questions go unanswered. Why do people love whom they love? Why do people believe what they believe? Why do prejudices not only persist, but blossom as rampantly as hothouse flowers? When does life begin, and when does it end? What is a coincidence? What is synchronicity? Where does reason end and faith begin? And perhaps most troubling, how much of the person sleeping beside you is everlastingly unknowable?
These are Jonathan Wind’s questions, although for much of the novel he does not know that he is asking them, and he doesn’t get to them right away.
He believes, at first, he is asking a much simpler question: What happened to Flora Ross?
From the Foreword by Reginald McKnight
ISBN: 978-1-951393-58-8 (hardcover), 978-1-951393-59-5 (paperback)
Price: $33.33 (hardcover) $19.00 (paperback) $9.00 (Kindle ebook)
Release date: Winter 2026
Praise for And Wind Will Wash Away:
“Like William T. Vollmann writing about San Francisco’s prostitutes and skinheads in The Rainbow Stories, Rothacker has rendered an empathetic portrait of Atlanta and its forgotten—or never truly known—subcultures. In his investigations, Wind neither glamorizes nor vilifies the cult members, sex workers, immigrants, and various groups of others he encounters. This is the novel’s true accomplishment: it gives voice and humanity to those we so easily forget and ignore.”
— William Morris, Cleaver Magazine
“Rothacker’s book has the metaphysical vertigo of Camus and the scorched grace of Flannery O’Connor, not to mention the theological patience of Umberto Eco. This is a debut that turns a murder case into a love story about a city and death, and the god we keep inventing to make sense of them both.”
— Chris Kelso, author of The Dregs Trilogy
“And Wind Will Wash Away is a dense, winding symphony drawing sacred notes from the past and weaving them, entwined, with the hum of a modern metropolis. At its core it is an intimate mystery, an obsession; at its expanse it is a reminder of long-lost and purposely forgotten histories. As Joyce venerated Dublin and its multitude of nefarious and virtuous characters, Rothacker serenades a turbulent Atlanta, enveloping the reader in the swollen heat of a late August dusk while delivering a modern oral tradition for the hub of the southeast.”
— William M. Brandon III, author of Eternity: The Long and the Short of It and Welcome to Spring Street
“Any book blurb serves two functions: (1) Contextualizing of a work. (2) The lending of authorial imprimatur. And Wind Will Wash Away is too huge, too sprawling, too complex, too interesting and too weird for pithy contextualization. So here’s what I’ll say: I really, really, like this book.”
— Jarett Kobek, author of I Hate the Internet
“Jordan A. Rothacker’s beguiling debut And Wind Will Wash Away effortlessly braids together ritual and religion, violence and philosophy, whimsy and insight. It cannily rewires the detective novel to explore mysteries that run deeper than any murder plot.”
— Jeff Jackson, author of Destroy All Monsters
“Rothacker has seamlessly sewn together detective fiction, gritty Beat literature, and serious theological speculation in his debut novel. And Wind Will Wash Away is at once erudite and entertaining, and Rothacker depicts the city of Atlanta with a knowing intimacy that reminds me of Jean-Paul Sartre describing Paris or John O’Hara describing New York City. The characters, the ideas, and the setting are all alive and utterly themselves in this impressive work of philosophical fiction. Get a copy for yourself and one for a friend, because you’re going to want to talk about this book for a long time to come.”
— Okla Elliott, author of The Doors You Mark Are Your Own
“Jordan A. Rothacker’s Atlanta operates in a nebulous place, shifting between this world and one in which the object of one’s faith is almost close enough to touch. Detective Jonathan Wind explores this place as an observer, not a participant, head and heart kept at bay in all things—in faith, in love. Rothacker’s scholarly and lyrical prose is something for the reader to grab ahold of as we follow Jonathan Wind. With Wind, we learn. Perhaps, too, we believe.”
— Pam Jones, author of The Imitation of Ozona
“Part farce, part gumshoe noir, part deep inquiry into the nature of belief—And Wind Will Wash Away is all of these things and more. Under Jordan Rothacker’s pen, the American South is rendered an absurd and mystical topography that brings to mind such writers as Thomas Pynchon, James Purdy, David Foster Wallace, William S. Burroughs, and David Lynch. Be prepared for a crazy, inspired, breathtaking ride.”
— Christian Kiefer, author of The Heart of It All
“Part detective novel, part love letter to a city’s kaleidoscopic underbelly, And Wind Will Wash Away is unlike anything you’ve ever read before.”
— Steph Post, author of Walk in the Fire
“Jordan Rothacker wields a staggering knowledge of philosophy, myth, and police procedure, which he binds into an existential detective story that snakes through the occult shadows of New South Atlanta and into the very nature of faith.”
— Taylor Brown, author of Rednecks and Wolvers
