Life, and Death, and Giants

A Novel

A heart too big for this world. A life that changes everyone.

"Life, and Death, and Giants is an intriguing and alluring novel from beginning to end. The events are startling, sad, amusing, invigorating, and informative. Reading it is like meeting a family that you never knew existed and becoming close friends in a few weeks. Highly recommended."—Jane Smiley, author of Lucky and A Thousand Acres

This program features multicast narration.

Gabriel Fisher was born an orphan, weighing eighteen pounds and measuring twenty-seven inches long. No one in Lakota, Wisconsin, knows what to make of him. He walks at eight months, communicates with animals, and seems to possess extraordinary athletic talent. But when the older brother who has been caring for him dies, Gabriel is taken in by his devout Amish grandparents who disapprove of all the attention and hide him away from the English world.

But it’s hard to hide forever when you’re nearly eight feet tall. At seventeen, Gabriel is spotted working in a hay field by the local football coach. What happens next transforms not only Gabriel’s life but the lives of everyone he meets.

Life, and Death, and Giants is a moving story of faith, family, buried secrets, and everyday miracles.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press

©2025 Ron Rindo (P)2025 Macmillan Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Straddling the Wisconsin of the Amish and “English,” Life, and Death, and Giants assays the limitations and temptations of the godly and the worldly. Ron Rindo has fashioned a small-town novel as magical and moral as a tall tale."–Stewart O’Nan, author of Snow Angels and Songs for the Missing

"With Life, and Death, and Giants, Ron Rindo has performed literary magic. This is a remarkable, profoundly moving novel."–Larry Watson, author of Montana 1948

"Like all the best tall-tales, legends, and folk stories, the size and skill of the hero matters to the narrative. But what matters more is the hero’s heart, and their willingness to sacrifice for a greater good to show their community and indeed, their country, what is possible, what is virtuous, what is best. The big beating heart of this novel is Gabriel Fisher, a 21st Century Paul Bunyan. But even more than Fisher is the book’s writer, Ron Rindo, who has crafted a novel that is remarkably generous, kind, and graceful. This is a novel that still believes in magic, goodness, and everyday heroes."—Nickolas Butler, author of Shotgun Lovesongs and A Forty Year Kiss

Loved this storytelling that was written so beautifully.

Loved the way characters were such an important part of how this story grew and took you through each of their lives.

If you loved Theo of Golden, this is your next read!

I read this directly after Theo of Golden. They both brim with kindness, forgiveness, and beauty.

Fabulous Read!

I loved everything about this family/community saga of two worlds, Amish-English communities fused by the birth and death of a giant human. The voices, the audio production and especially the writing captured my heart, my imagination and made me think deeply of the spiritual nature of the men and women who inhabited this story. Loved everything about it!

How every character in the book is so likable

I loved everything about this book, no plot no twists just A beautiful sad yet at times happy book

Beautiful and Poignant Story

Fantastical story based in a reality.
I think I may have enjoyed this book more because I grew up in an area that would have neighbored the fictional Lakota. I knew the Amish community well from a distance.
The vocal actor who did Hannah’s voice had a cadence very much like my own grandmother’s.
All in all the story will be one I’m sure I will revisit.