A New England Book Award Finalist. “There's so much life in this beautiful book that it feels like a living thing. Wesley McNair is a kind of Chekhov of American poetry.”—Ted Kooser, Pulitzer Prize winner and Poet Laureate.

Wesley McNair is a poet, memorist, and storyteller. His stories are personal and yet speak to our most urgent, universal, concerns. As he writes...

For we are all born into exile, saved only by the homes
we dream, and the love that we may find there.

Set in rural Virginia, the poet’s younger sister Aimee is adrift in a difficult marriage to Mike, a Trump-supporting, church-going, off-the-grid gun shop owner. McNair brilliantly explores his sister’s life, his own family’s past, to seek understanding. Throughout, this marvelous work, McNair attests to patience and perseverance, and an unwavering belief in compassion and reconciliation, in love’s ability to unite us, even amidst the ugly politics of our time.

Dwellers in the House of the Lord is for anyone who loves poetry’s unique power, in the hands of a master, to tell stories of our lives.