Holy Smoke

Gary Mullins can read a fire better than he can read most people. For years he ran the pit at Swine & Dandy, a barbecue joint in North Texas, until a health inspection and a nervous owner put him out the back door at fifty-three with nothing to cook.

So he does the thing he has talked about for years. He claims his grandmother's Irish citizenship and flies to County Sligo. His son calls it running away. His mother calls it about time.

In Sligo he finds Tom Mullins, a cousin who farms spruce and speaks mostly in silences. Tom's wife Agnes runs the house and everyone in it. Their son Michael has a lantern and a hundred questions, and their daughter Sally keeps a notebook on everything. Gary has a plan for maybe one good dinner. Then there's the old oil tank in the back shed, a butcher who has never seen a whole brisket, and a man from the council who would like a word about the van.

What starts as a visit turns into a season, and Gary finds out why his family left Ireland. Then a phone call from Texas tests everything he's built.

Holy Smoke is a big-hearted comic novel about second acts and slow cooking, and about the people who keep a fire going for you when you're not there to tend it.