Heart of Junk
A Novel
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
A hilarious debut novel about an eclectic group of merchants at a Kansas antique mall who become implicated in the kidnapping of a local beauty pageant star.
The city of Wichita, Kansas, is wracked with panic over the abduction of toddler pageant princess Lindy Bobo. However, the dealers at The Heart of America Antique Mall are too preoccupied by their own neurotic compulsions to take much notice. Postcards, perfume bottles, Barbies, vinyl records, kitschy neon beer signs—they collect and sell it all.
Rather than focus on Lindy, this colorful cast of characters is consumed by another drama: the impending arrival of Mark and Grant from the famed antiques television show Pickin’ Fortunes, who are planning to film an episode at The Heart of America and secretly may be the last best hope of saving the mall from bankruptcy. Yet the mall and the missing beauty queen have more to do with each other than these vendors might think, and before long, the group sets in motion a series of events that lead to surprising revelations about Lindy’s whereabouts. As the mall becomes implicated in her disappearance, will Mark and Grant be scared away from all of the drama or will they arrive in time to save The Heart of America from going under?
Equally comical and suspenseful, Heart of Junk is also a biting commentary on our current Marie Kondo era. It examines why certain objects resonate with us so deeply, rebukes Kondo’s philosophy of wholesale purging, and argues that “junk” can have great value—connecting us not only to our personal pasts but to our shared human history. As author Luke Geddes writes: “A collection was a record of a life lived, maybe not well or happily but at least with attention and passion. It was autobiography made whole.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Geddes's rambunctious, oddly touching debut homes in on the denizens of a massive Kansas antique mall. The small-scale purveyors of what the less sensitive would call junk are pinning their hopes on the arrival of the production crew for the TV show Pickin' Fortunes. Unfortunately, the hosts of the show are leery to come to a town where a little girl, beauty pageant star Lindy Bobo, has disappeared, possibly kidnapped. So mall owner Keith, on the brink of bankruptcy, enlists the rest of the troupe to find her, unaware that one of his sellers knows more than he's saying about Lindy's whereabouts. Geddes assembles an irresistible cast of self-deluded characters. This includes uptight Margaret, a stickler for the rules and desperate to repress her attraction to a fellow seller; hapless Ronald, too friendly for his own good; high-strung Delores, "dizzied by all the voices" of the Barbies who keep her company; and Seymour, a big-city vinyl album aficionado hauled to the sticks by his partner Lee. Geddes walks an edgy tightrope with some of the material, particularly the Lindy story, but his antic comic touch saves the novel from sinking into darkness, and he offers even his most misguided characters the opportunity to bumble towards redemption. This one's a quirky treat for fans of flyover state humor.
Customer Reviews
Junk bonds
Author
American. From Wisconsin. PhD in literature and creative writing University of Cincinnati, and now lives there. Stories published in various trendy journals I’ve never heard of, and in a 2012 collection called I Am A Magical Teenage Princess (I kid you not). This is his first novel.
Plot summary
Panic in Wichita, Kansas after 8-year-old beauty pageant winner is abducted. A collection of misfits and eccentrics who operate stalls in the Heart of America Antique Mall find themselves implicated, falsely in all but one case.
Characters
Margaret (busybody) , Keith (oddball), Ellie (the mall association president’s daughter who wishes she were anywhere ), Delores (Barbie fan), Ronald (I’ve forgotten), Seymour, and Lee (a gay couple who are new stall owners in the mall). Assorted supporting characters.
Narrative
Third person alternating between each of the chief protagonists.
Prose
Professional overall, although fussy at times. It’s supposed to be satire, but I didn’t find it very amusing, which I should have because I detest craft markets and hate Antiques Roadshow worse than Hitler.
Bottom line
The idea was good and the characters well drawn, but I kept expecting there’d be a moment when I felt engaged with this book. That moment never came.