Kiss the Babies: a novel

Readers’ Comments

“Welcome to Mayhem Mountain, where a stone mason turned clinical social worker finds himself on a journey to discover the meaning of life—or at least his own life. Evocatively written, with a fascinating cast of characters. A must read!”

—Rodman Philbrick, author of Freak the Mighty

“A haunting tale filled with truth, compassion and old soul prose that flays the heart.”

—Patrick Tracey, author of Stalking Irish Madness

“Combine a bit of Flannery O’Connor with Jack Kerouac, Tom Wolfe and a touch of Hunter Thompson and what do you get? The brilliance of Dean Ludington’s voice coming through the pages of his first novel Kiss the Babies. Set within a backdrop between Maine and South Carolina, the reader is caught up in a story that takes us on a journey from one man’s sense of feeling hopelessly lost to a place that eventually leads to renewal, connection, and deeply abiding love.”

—Patricia Gianotti, Psy.D, author of Embracing Therapeutic Complexity, Uncovering the Resilient Core, and Listening with Purpose

“Atmospheric and spare in style…The reader is taken on a journey that unfolds with the slo-mo pace of a traffic accident involving a carload of characters already crippled long before the car inevitably hits the pole.”

—Tom Verde, freelance journalist whose work appears in New York Times, NPR and the BBC, Politico, Religion News Service, Gastro Obscura, Roads & Kingdoms.

“Poetic and detailed descriptions of all things solid; from stonewalls in New England to the cobbled streets of the antebellum South… His self-deprecating or other-deprecating humor will make you laugh out loud; and then weep as we feel the pain that that heavy armour tries to protect. A banished banshee howling in the night and finally awakened to redemption by the grace of human spirits. And the undying belief in hope.”

—David Tulli, LICSW, Trauma Specialist