In “Mammother,” acclaimed poet Zachary Schomburg’s first novel, the people of Pie Time are suffering from a mysterious plague that leaves something inside a death hole in each victim’s chest. Mano Medium, a grief-stricken young cigarette-factory worker in love, quits the factory to work double-time as Pie Time’s replacement barber and butcher, and holds the things found in the holes of the newly dead. However, as more people die, the bigger Mano becomes. With a large cast of characters, each struggling with their own tangled relationships to death, money, and love, “Mammother” is a fabulist tale of holding on and letting go in a rapidly growning world.

Zachary Schomburg, a University of Nebraska alumnus, is a poet, a novelist, and illustrator; he’s the author of four books of poetry (including “The Man Suit,” one of the New York Public Library’s ‘25 Books to Remember for 2007’), and is the publisher of Octopus Books. He lives in Portland, OR. “Mammother” is published by the renowned independent press, Featherproof Books. Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program of the Department of English.