Free Range Men (2014, Main Street Rag): T.J. Beckerman is unlucky in life and love. Newly divorced and struggling to make ends meet as an overworked and underpaid adjunct professor, he whiles away his evenings hopping from dive bar to dive bar with his two boozy friends. Skirt-chasing, but still pining for his ex-wife—who has a new love interest—Beckerman struggles to maintain a presence in his still-impressionable son’s life. Strapped for cash and desperate to pay his child support obligations, he takes a cue from a fellow professor and enters into a very questionable sideline—a shady business sure to end what little of an academic career he’s got left. Free Range Men is a modern day tragedy set in small-town Pennsylvania, told in a spare prose, and punctuated with dark humor.  

 

The Late Great Thor McHugh (Aardwolfe Books, 2014): Lucy Glass had often dreamed of the father she'd never known, imagining he was a world-famous surgeon or perhaps an airline pilot. What she didn't expect was that he was Thor McHugh, an aging, self-absorbed Bigfoot hunter. Living off the funding of a 4th tier university, McHugh and his partner, Ames, share a comfortable yet insular life in their fortified compound. But when a new chancellor takes over, McHugh suddenly finds himself cash strapped and out of a job. For Lucy, the stakes are much higher. Ailing from a rare terminal illness, her only hope is to locate any relatives that may be potential tissue donors. With the assistance of a private eye, Lucy tracks down her father and his two other illegitimate children who are her brothers. Together, they converge on McHugh's compound with a resulting clash of wills and personalities that ebbs and flows as they learn more about the flippant con man who paid off their respective mothers to be rid of them. Will the aging McHugh find redemption in the form of his now-adult children? Will he succeed in reclaiming his funding? More importantly, will Lucy find a match?   

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We Are Smoke (Carmelite Books 2024): Jack Burnett is the last of the Burnett men, and despite the fact that three generations of Burnett men have died on the eve of their 40th Christmas, he never believed in curses. However, when he suddenly disappears while trying to uncover the truth behind his family's curse in Italy, it's up to his best friend, Nora Rodgers, to find him before it's too late. As Nora sets out to find Jack, she must confront her own grief and come to terms with her feelings for Jack. As she wanders through the great cities of Italy, retracing Jack’s steps, a new picture of her former lover begins to develop—of a man wrestling with sadness, a sadness that reaches palpably into Nora’s very soul. Could she be remembering Jack wrong? Even more, could she be remembering her own history wrong? Could she and Jack not only have been former lovers, but married as well? Questioning her own sanity, Nora is plunged deeper into a mystery involving the marginalized Romany people of Europe, a century-old grudge, and a riddle with Nora seemingly at its center.

Part psychological thriller, part meditation on grief and loss, We Are Smoke is a literary fever dream that blurs the lines between reality, self-mythology, and the lies we tell ourselves to make sense of our worlds. We Are Smoke delves deeply into the rich history of and culture of the Romany people.