"San Quentin Exodus, Bill Smoot’s deeply compelling novel, introduces readers to the world of prison but really to the much bigger world of his characters’ lives, inviting us to follow the trajectory of each as it unfolds with surprise and mystery, love and loss. Like all good literature, San Quentin Exodus ultimately asks us to reconsider everything we believe—or think we believe. Smoot is the consummate storyteller: restrained, wise, compassionate."

—Lori Ostlund, author of Are You Happy?

"In San Quentin Exodus, Bill Smoot takes us deeply into the world of incarceration and rehabilitation, with its pitfalls and fragile possibility. Smoot has delivered two unforgettable characters whose encounter alters the trajectory of each of their lives. The social and economic circumstances that lead to the young James’s incarceration, and the disturbing story of his long tenure behind bars, suggest the abject limitations of our current penal system, while the well-intentioned Allison, who tutors James in the prison’s college program, draws upon the perspective of her own marginalization to risk everything in the story’s dramatic final act.

—Angela Pneuman, author of Lay it on my Heart