In this evocative, compelling novel, Gary Wilson manages not only to tell a page-turner story about a horrendous crime and its complicated aftermath, but also to do something even more difficult and rare, to capture the paradox of living as an ex-pat in a place that is at once completely familiar and totally unfamiliar, boringly predictable and shockingly unpredictable. He does this through the tale of two married Peace Corps volunteers and an American lawyer who find themselves thrown together in the small southern African country of Swaziland in 1970 as the draft and Vietnam war cast a long shadow over their homeland. The book opens with the crime, a brutal rape, that remains inexplicable which is the case with so many aspects of this country to these Americans even as they recognize how much they have come to love the place. Highly recommended. ~ Amazon Reviewer, Amazon

The Narrow Window is fundamentally a love story between two Peace Corps Volunteers invited to teach high school science and English in Eswatini (nee Swaziland), a small splendid gem of a country in southern Africa. Shortly after their arrival, the young wife and husband are subjected to a harrowing experience that would test the courage and determination of anyone, let alone a couple 9,000 miles from home, living among a people navigating the complex path between their traditional culture and western influences. The love story is compelling. The invitation into a place you have likely never been is flat-out enchanting. You’ll be glad for having made the trip. ~ Amazon Reader, Amazon

Gary Wilson's latest novel is set in late 1960s in newly-independent Swaziland where a Peace Corps volunteer couple seeks emotional and physical distance from the unrest and tumult taking place back home. Their hopes are dashed by an episode of shocking intimate violence and their subsequent exposure to a newly established legal system that is subject to ulterior motives and corruption at high levels of government. That their experience is mitigated by the people closest to them (and an adopted kitten) reminds us of the healing effects of relationships, as important today as it was back then. ~ Amazon Reader, Amazon

Gary Wilson's latest novel is set in late 1960s in newly-independent Swaziland where a Peace Corps volunteer couple seeks emotional and physical distance from the unrest and tumult taking place back home. Their hopes are dashed by an episode of shocking intimate violence and their subsequent exposure to a newly established legal system that is subject to ulterior motives and corruption at high levels of government. That their experience is mitigated by the people closest to them (and an adopted kitten) reminds us of the healing effects of relationships, as important today as it was back then. ~ Amazon Reader, Amazon

Set in apartheid-era Swaziland, a land-locked enclave within the 'Republic' of South Africa, this is ostensibly a crime-and-punishment story that in reality serves as background to a stationary 'travelog' back and forth within a narrow confine of breathtakingly beautiful natural beauty and across the grossly unequal social strata of post-colonial Africa. The stationary 'travelers' here are three American expats, a young couple and a middle-aged man, all well-educated though of limited means, whose social stature relative to their African counterparts rests chiefly upon their skin-color and nationality. It is through their eyes that we observe both landscape and events, even though there are also a number of African expats, fleeing oppression from the harsh colonialism that encircles their Swazi haven. As the story unfolds, we get to see the ruminations of the Americans in the forward plane but only to guess at those of the Africans in the background. The similarities and contrasts in all these inner turmoils invite as much contemplation after finishing the book as does the gripping attraction while reading it. ~ Amazon Reader, Amazon

There’s a term used to describe prose that, for some, might first appear to be a level of criticism. It is not for me. Far from it. It is praise. The word is “quiet.” I became familiar with Gary D. Wilson’s work when I read his award-winning collection of short stories, For Those Who Favor Fire. The characters, carefully rendered, are taken directly from the honest and meticulous examination of humanity’s complications. To deliver stories that resonate with a shared humanity, an author must allow the weight of a story, the weight of the world, to settle in, to seep through the skin to places of the heart. That takes time and quietude. Wilson does this magnificently in his collection of stories. And he does it again in his novel The Narrow Window. Although, I would suggest, the novel is not as quiet as his short stories, as it employs a level of suspense, but the characters are drawn with the same pen — with empathy, heartbreak, belonging, and quietness of spirit. The events in The Narrow Window are both disturbing and impactful, set in the backdrop of the turbulent 1960s and an unsettled Africa, with the evolution of the characters coming as it does for all of us — through pain and suffering, and the slow, steady beat of heartbreak. The story is about two young Americans wrestling with their beliefs, their motivations, and their loyalties after an unspeakable act of personal violence upends their lives while teaching abroad, all as an enormous shift has forever knocked the American cultural landscape off balance. The story is a page-turner, and one that engages the reader to consider what we all are willing to embrace and what we are willing to let go. It’s a story that carries with it mystery and a visceral unsettledness, challenging you to consider what truly matters in a life, and what ultimately lifts us and scars us. And Wilson does all of this in a methodical and unputdownable narrative. A kind of quiet prose, yes, but also magnificently gripping. ~ David W. Berner - Author , FULL REVIEW - https://medium.com/the-writer-shed/the-narrow-window-7cdf722f0d55

In what is a mighty fine read, from start to finish, and chock full of fascinatingly characters, themselves, each and every one, a fully rounded, fully functional being for us to lock in on, The Narrow Window (A Novel) by author Gary D. Wilson is one of those books they term as a literal page turner... A dutiful tale of one’s very own identity, who we are, who we wish to become, and who we eventually become, along with the meaning of belonging (mentally and physically), it’s about everything we leave behind along with the accumulated baggage we take with us, of course. ~ Exclusive Magazine, FULL REVIEW - https://annecarlini.com/ex_books.php?id=631

A story that is compelling, sad, hopeful and a government whose King and Prince carry out their own needs and agendas and will do anything to rid themselves of those who stand in their way... Gary D. Wilson takes all of the characters on an intense trip to understand the meaning of belonging, identity, friendship and embracing the differences in people and their beliefs. ~ Fran Lewis

This is a story that digs in early and won't let up - Gary Wilson creates characters who are formed by history and circumstance - his generous empathy combines with a sharp and critical insight to make you care deeply at the same time as you're turning the pages to make one discovery after another. From the very first paragraph to the very last, this is a book that will stay with you for a long time. ~ Amazon Reader, Amazon

Gary D. Wilson’s “The Narrow Window” comes tantalizingly close to being a mystery, a “whydunit” rather than a “whodunit” since the perpetrator is never in doubt. Acknowledging the real world, however, he holds short and creates more of a quiet reflection on the middle distance, both in time and place: Africa in the mature years of apartheid and early years of nation building, as seen through the lens of the Vietnam era when the Peace Corps was the best legal draft dodge around. Wilson avoids drama, opting instead to calmly confront the facts on the ground: realpolitik, misogynism, and the quiet insistence of endemic culture. The author’s craft is abundant, holding my interest, producing not exactly a page-turner, more of a chapter-turner. I found “The Narrow Window” an intelligent alternative to a beach read, probably because I enjoyed it so much on my vacation. ~ Amazon Reviewer, Amazon

"The Narrow Window" is the kind of novel that serious readers of fiction search out, cherish, and gift to good friends. Wilson's novel about a pair of Peace Corps volunteers in apartheid-era Swaziland during the late 1960s is tough as well as sensitive and caring. The writing is spot on. I am delighted that a friend recommended that I read this fine novel. It's a book to take with you on a trip, as it takes you to a place that you won't soon forget. ~ tony--Amazon Reviewer, Amazon

The shocking rape of a Peace Corps volunteer shatters the precarious balance of American idealism and hypocrisy in l969 Swaziland, a newly independent country dealing with its own equally fraught post-colonial issues. Full of fascinating characters in exquisitely described exotic locations, where everyone has their own agenda, the new modernity mixes with native customs and spirits, and expats only think they know what’s really going on. Above all, Wilson’s heartbreaking novel exposes the irony of our country’s continuing desire to benevolently remake the world in one part of the globe while waging war in another and what happens to those trying to make it all work. A tale of identity and the meaning of belonging. The scars we leave behind and the scars we take with us. ~ Rita Dragonette, author of The Fourteenth of September

There is the poetry of quiet to Gary Wilson's storytelling, always there beneath the surface of narration. Quiet masking horror, pain, some manner of fury, longing, the mystery of being. Here, in The Narrow Window, that still solitude of a story's telling seems more looming shadow than mask. Quiet frames the most jarring din of a collision in this intersection. This is still the contemporary term for the realm in which the bearers of cultures meet and, if not outright clash, then attempt to take from the other, yes? Quiet before the intersection of characters arriving from disparate realities to a shared land, surrounded by still another country. Humans bearing intents and notions in purposed conflict between themselves. All mutually seeking to take some unspeakable advantage to get somewhere, something, before they indeed collide and all that is left for them is the quiet lingering afterwards. ~ Bayo Ojikutu, author of 47th Street Black and Free Burning

Wilson's writing is thoughtful, patient, and above all, illuminating. Setting and character converge in highly concentrated light, but it isn't a light by which Wilson forces us to see. Rather, Wilson invites us to consider, in brand new light, the ways in which humans deal with guilt, integrity, fear, duty. The gaps between these elements widen as we read each sentence and fill themselves in with increasing tension. The Narrow Window is a moving work. ~ Paul Luikarft, author of The Museum of Heartache