In gloomy southern Missouri, meth-addicted preacher's son Eric Redmond--idealistic, eccentric, and wise beyond his years--warns us of an impending apocalypse of our own doing. With a wide cast of characters that exist in the periphery of unreliable source Eric, including a satirical depiction of the Westboro Baptist Church, we see both dysfunction and beauty in this hypnotic and fragmented novel of adolescent self-destruction, bad medicine, and death. Jarod Powell evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a vivid illustration into the disaffected teenage psyche in a story unlike any of our time. Currently being adapted into a feature length film, Boys in Gilded Cages has the makings of a modern classic, a lyrical and timeless tale of sex, drugs and death that transforms and mythologizes rural American life.