The Savage Side critiques the primary models of deity in dominant political theologies, especially those which align God with the natural world. The justice-seeking, political revolutionary God that the oppressed worship has dwindled back to the political fervor from which it sprang. In its place, a God based on our struggling existence in the natural world emerges, terrifyingly indifferent to any political or moral ideology.

When his family was attacked by Arapahos, Jared Sunnedon saw his parents slaughtered. He and his sister Kate made it out alive, only to be taken prisoner. Then and there, they vowed that if they were ever separated, they’d never give up the search for each other. After Kate was captured by Utes and sold off, Jared made good on his promise and escaped. But the hunt put a hard edge on the young man. He’s gotten a reputation as a bitter mad-dog killer. That’s the way Jared likes it. Because there’s no man alive—and no stretch of wasted desert or backwater dirt town—that’s going to come between Jared and the only family’s he’s got left.

"It is fast-moving and often downright funny."—New York Times "He has recaptured childish innocence and presented it with adult enlightenment—plus a touch of cynicism—yet never with irreverence." —Book-of-the-Month Club News First confession and its terrors. Eighty-four first graders in a classroom ruled by just one nun. The agony and the ecstasy of Lent. The dubious honor of being declared the worst altar server ever. Dinah Shore and the Blessed Virgin haunting your dreams. This is Eddie Ryan's world as he grows up in the intensely Catholic world of South-Side Chicago's St. Bastion's parish in the 1950s. In this classic coming-of-age novel, John Powers draws readers into Eddie Ryan's world with deep affection and bittersweet humor.