Synopses & Reviews
In Michael Parker’s new novel, Joel Dunn Jr. tells the story of how he did everything he could to save his family after his mother left and his father’s tenuous hold on sanity unraveled. On a journey from the town of Trent, North Carolina, to the coast, Joel and his little brother Tank thread their way back to their mother, fueled by potato chips, Coke, and the soundtrack of the powerful soul music that their daddy taught them to love. Always keeping the faith that their mother is waiting for them, they move from one kindly stranger to another on their odyssey, Joel ever certain they are being guided to her door: “I was being passed from person to person,” he says, “on my way back into her wide open window.”
Caught between the endless idealism of childhood and the sobering tests of adulthood, Joel and Tank bravely negotiate their way through a landscape of love and beauty, abandonment and betrayal, to learn that the one sure thing is often right by your side.
Synopsis
In Michael Parkers new novel, Joel Dunn Jr. tells the story of how he did everything he could to save his family after his mother left and his fathers tenuous hold on sanity unraveled. On a journey from the town of Trent, North Carolina, to the coast, Joel and his little brother Tank thread their way back to their mother, fueled by potato chips, Coke, and the soundtrack of the powerful soul music that their daddy taught them to love. Always keeping the faith that their mother is waiting for them, they move from one kindly stranger to another on their odyssey, Joel ever certain they are being guided to her door: “I was being passed from person to person,” he says, “on my way back into her wide open window.”
Caught between the endless idealism of childhood and the sobering tests of adulthood, Joel and Tank bravely negotiate their way through a landscape of love and beauty, abandonment and betrayal, to learn that the one sure thing is often right by your side.
About the Author
In 1996 Michael Parker was a finalist for Granta’s “20 best American fiction writers under 40.” He is the author of Hello Down There, a New York TimesNotable Book and a finalist for the PEN/ Hemingway award; The Geographical Cure, winner of the Sir Walter Raleigh Award; Towns Without Rivers; and Virginia Lovers. His work has been published in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, Five Points, and others, and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Prize Stories, the Pushcart Prize, and New Stories from the South. He is a professor in the M.F.A. writing program at University of North Carolina at Greensboro.