Golden Heart Parade
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
"Raw, dark, and surprisingly funny...there's so much precision and verve in these stories; I was captivated the entire way through." - Carmen Maria Machado
The misfits and mavericks in this award-winning story collection shuffle their feet to a soundtrack of rumble strips and twangy AM radio. Here, the underdog is king and the outsiders are storming the gates. A plucky daughter defends her father by swinging a paint can like a mace, teenage renegades sow terror on the highway by throwing cups of root beer, and an out-of-work lawyer steamrolls his way through a recreational sports league. For these loners and screwballs, the path to redemption is often twisted, heartfelt, and humorous.
These stories will take you from the karaoke bar to the natural foods co-op, from a city-league broomball game to a broken-down camper in the woods. In lush and lucid prose, Holt explores emotional landscapes that reflect the vast terrain of America's heartland. Woven throughout is a series of flash-fiction parables, which narrate a journey both exotic and existential. So pull up a seat among this motley crew of barflies, road workers, and art school dropouts, and you might later find yourself retelling their stories as your own.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This strangely moving debut collection from Holt offers up a motley mix of broken characters in stories about America's heartland. In "Worst at Night," a man and his daughter find a drunken guy in their house and bond over their ensuing struggle with the intruder. In "Charges," a 30-year-old man slips from his new urban life with an office job and multiple newspaper subscriptions after he starts hearing voices and becomes "harangued by weird feelings of guilt." He moves back home into his parents' suburban basement and eventually starts a lawn care company, but his fortunes turn again. Like many of the protagonists, this one earns empathy while he's down. Some stories are flash fiction and take up less than half a page while others are much longer, like "Barkley the Ice King," which brilliantly chronicles the slow spiral into panic of an angry, unemployed lawyer. Unexpected humor abounds ("He's fat for being from Arizona," remarks the daughter about the drunk man in "Worst at Night"), cutting through the raw emotions, minimalist narrative, and snappy dialogue. Holt's gaze falls on grit and grime, but he writes with plenty of heart.
