Esquire magazine calls thirty-seven-year-old Aaron Gwyn “one of America’s great new writers,” and we’re inclined to agree, even if he isn’t all that new. In Dog on the Cross, his 2004 short story collection, he unflinchingly, viscerally depicts the Southern Pentecostal experience. Last year, Gwyn published his first novel, the taut and provocative The World Beneath. And his students at UNC-Charlotte rave about him.