"Gold in the Furnace is a knockout exploration of life on the margins in the modern American West. Across six shimmering stories, Kathleen McNamara depicts subject matter ranging from the brutal realities of addiction to the weirdness and wonder of a cryptid sighting, offering us fiction that finds a way to surprise even as it devastates. Elegantly written, fastidiously researched, and utterly original, this collection heralds the arrival of a must-read new voice."

–Allegra Hyde, author of The Last Catastrophe

"Kathleen McNamara’s story collection, Gold in the Furnace, gives us an American West made of natural and decidedly unnatural phenomenon. The stories cross between everyday struggles and immeasurable loss in these gorgeous, largely rural sites. Tragedies including mental illness, addiction, floods, fire, and an avalanche call up otherworlds and dream spaces. Hauntings, a blond bigfoot, bioluminescent worm clusters, arsenic waters, humans becoming arboreal—none of these feel impossible when set among the strange geography McNamara writes. These stories stun; the author’s skill, knowledge, and imagination make for a stellar collection."

–Linda Michel-Cassidy, author of When We Were Hardcore

"Kathleen McNamara's stories are united by what haunts our lore, both the stories that keep being passed on and the private incidents that characters dare not tell others. The characters in Gold in the Furnace defy the ineffable: facing situations that straddle the thin line between the real and the unreal, they nevertheless make a stab at describing the shifting nature of their worlds. The result is a dazzling collection that can summon anything into its dream palace—fantastical creatures, the haze of addiction, the siren call of a cult leader—and make us firmly believe in how they exist."

–Manuel Muñoz, author of The Consequences