PRAISE FOR O.H. BENNETT'S CREATURES HERE BELOW :
"In his third novel, Bennett brings an African-American community to vivid life with strong and compelling characters and narrative themes to matchgrowing up, the struggles of parenthood and young adulthood, the responsibilities we all have to each other as people....Bennett handles the multiple plot lines with grace and skill, and readers will appreciate the subtle growth of the characters, as well as the diverse array of experience." Publishers Weekly
"Bennett diligently anatomizes both the antagonisms and love relationships of single-family households, pushing well beyond formulas and racial stereotypes." Kirkus Reviews
"Without glorifying, minimizing, or pandering, Creatures chronicles cycles of violence and abandonment, fight or flight, taking patient survey of the survival instincts and socioeconomic realities that allow destructive patterns to take root...Bennett’s enduring strength begins with the methodical layering of telling details." — Nathan Huffstutter, The Nervous Breakdown blog
"Bennett's characters become likeable in their frailties and failures, and the back-and-forth ripens into a welcome addition. Grab this book...you’ll be rewarded by a bold story. In the end, Creatures Here Below is a novel you’ll be talking about." — Terri Schlichenmeyer, Philadelphia Tribune
" Creatures Here Below is a moving and poignant coming of age novel, very much recommended." — Midwest Book Review
"An accomplished and compelling novel...The characters are layered and complex and relationships are beautifully interwoven. They offer hope in spite of broken dreams, and redemption." — Martin Macaulay, PANK magazine
PRAISE FOR O.H. BENNETT'S PREVIOUS NOVEL, THE COLORED GARDEN :
"This novel shows how the hidden history of a family, once unearthed, can forever change a person's view of himself and his relatives." The New York Times Book Review
"Bennett's first novel is beautiful and real; impossible to put down until the final page." Booklist
"O.H. Bennett's brilliant first novel strikes into the heart with exactly the force of revelation." Richard Bausch
A fragmented novel about family fragmentation. Bennett has no single focus here but tends to circle back to conflict within the family of Gail Neighbors. She runs a small boardinghouse in Indiana, so small, in fact, that she has only two tenants: Annie, who's showing signs of senility and dementia, and single-mother Jackie, who's trying to find a place to raise toddler Cole, though on occasion she still finds herself drawn back in to her previous party-loving lifestyle. Gail has two sons. Tyler, the younger, sings solos at church and generally leads an upright existence, while his older half brother, Mason Reed, is tormented by the abandonment of his father, Pony Reed, years before. At the age of 11 Mason has a brief, abortive encounter with his father, but a few years later he feels drawn in by the force field of his father's charisma. After his father essentially pimps for Mason in trying to arrange his son's first sexual encounter, Pony disappears again. Anguished and lost, Mason decides to go in search of him. His companions on this journey are Kenny Gamble, a drug addict and perhaps the least-likely person in the cosmos to be helpful to Mason, and his friend Gina. Meanwhile, back at the boardinghouse, Jackie faces the possibility of being forced to give up her beloved Cole. Bennett diligently anatomizes both the antagonisms and love relationships of single-family households, pushing well beyond formulas and racial stereotypes.