Ron Hansen is the author of six novels, including The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (1983) and Mariette in Ecstasy (1991) He is also the author of a book of stories, Nebraska (1989), and the collection of essays, A Stay Against Confusion: Essays on Faith and Fiction (2001). In May, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published his biographical novel, Exiles.