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 As an author, I aspire to be like certain authors, and truth be told, I am always gazing toward Melville, Orwell, and Dostoyevsky. I am none of these three in terms of talent, but when I craft a novel, this trio always sits like a panel of judges in the back of my mind, simply because their works have struck me in the most powerful ways, thus I want to emulate them. So I’m a fanboy after all, just not for video games, but for literature.
When a work gets published, the world gets to define it in terms that live outside the author’s mind, popping the bubble the author lived inside while writing the story. This can be a blessing or a curse, depending on what other books are name-dropped in the reviews. When the Financial Times reviewed . . . → Read More: The typecast curse: When a book review marries you to another author
 Getting cold yet? Batten down the hatches with A Town Called Immaculate, now on Kindle. Check out the reviews below!
Review from the Financial Times (Review by James Urquhart)
With its terse emotions, rural dysfunction and sharply comic moments, this suspenseful debut shares midwestern ambiance and territory with the Coen brothers’ Fargo. An array of strong characters gives a bright, nervy edge to Anthony’s fresh prose.
Review from the South Wales Argus (Read full review)
Josh Werther is the first to offer help to find the missing boy Jacob Marak, but it soon becomes evident that Josh’s interest goes further then just ‘being neighbourly’.
I found this novel a very . . . → Read More: Warm up Christmas with a blizzard: A Town Called Immaculate now on Kindle
 Finding the right cover image for a novel is not an easy task. I wrote about it in a previous post: Creating/Finding the Right Book Cover, or Getting Lost on the Internet. For the sequel to A Town Called Immaculate, I’ve been fortunate to find an autumn farm image that encapsulates much of the look-and-feel that I think the novel deserves. Thanks to Joel Dinda‘s excellent photos on Flickr, I have a cover design that fits the story. I encourage you to check out Joel’s other photos, too.
The farm in the Immaculate series is the Ray and Renee Marak farm. The Marak family is the centerpiece of the series. If you’ve read A Town Called Immaculate, you know that the farm is near a woods and a pond, both of which appear again . . . → Read More: Cover design for The Plenty nearing completion–feedback welcome!
At midnight, the door of the Werther house opened. Kathy stepped inside quietly, thinking of her sleeping children. A smell of cigarette smoke clung to her coat and fingers. During her soul searching hours she rediscovered a habit she had kicked for ten years. But lighting up in her rusty Toyota did not give the satisfaction it once did. Every light in the house burned brightly and she started to flick switches in making her way to the kitchen. A folder in her hand contained important documents, the beginning of the end for Josh and Kathy’s marriage. In the kitchen, she gathered herself, intending to wake Josh and deliver the news to him.
An electrical hum came from the living room and Kathy shook her head, knowing that the TV caused the white noise. Steeling herself for confrontation, she entered the living room expecting to find Josh sitting up, . . . → Read More: The Plenty: Chapter 33
When Josh crept out of the camper, he already knew the depth of his destroyed reputation, now that Hank Murphy and Judd Blanks both knew. He sought isolation, to hide from the story that he expected to engulf the town like a flash flood. Like Kathy had done earlier in the day, Josh ducked in his car, in fear of recognition.
Through Immaculate, Josh drove, low in the seat, peering over his steering wheel in search of his mother, June Werther, and his trick-or-treating children. The happiness on children’s faces guarded every street, putting Josh’s own depravity into high relief. An old couple in wheelchairs sat near the sidewalk handing out candy, laughing together, even holding hands. He rolled down his window to cool off and heard a girl cry out, "Step on a crack, break your back," and turned to see a line of girls carefully hopping along the . . . → Read More: The Plenty: Chapter 32
The deer in Hank’s garage attracted company. Men in trucks circled the block, craning their necks on their first pass, and parking on the second pass, stopping to visit the dead animal, it being a conversational springboard. A man wearing a shirt with a picture of a wolf under a full moon waddled into the garage. A farmer in a blaze orange camouflage zip-up sweater parked and moseyed up the driveway, hands in his pockets, eyes locked on the carcass. Hunters were drawn to the garage light like moths.
Tommy had returned to the Hank’s without Judd, calling his cousin a ‘hothead’ and Hank tried to put the man out of his mind, but he silently dwelled upon it.
In the rear of the garage, near a window, Hank held court under his swaying deer while sitting on a deep-freeze that contained a quarter-cow of ground beef and fifty Hungry-Man . . . → Read More: The Plenty: Chapter 31
Ray arrived back at the farm, alone, without Ethan or Jacob, the former having elected to walk, the latter left behind at Dr. Parker’s office. With regret, Ray abandoned Jacob at the doctor, and let Ethan wander, but a dairy farmer is never loose of the tether to cattle and clock. The trade allowed for no sick days, no vacation pay, no weekends, no holidays, and ultimately, no sympathy. Cluttered with events of the day, he pulled into the driveway of the Marak farm and parked in front of the barn. The lights of the milkhouse glowed, meaning Renee, for the second time in a day, had rode the four-wheeler out to the pasture and collected the cattle for milking.
In the parlor she stood in knee-high boots, her hair in a bandana, her mouth in a straight line. Limping down the steel stairs to the parlor floor, Ray said, . . . → Read More: The Plenty: Chapter 30
In Immaculate, Ray Marak and Matthew Klein sat on opposing sides of a desk with a document between them. The lawyer, Klein, had a known tendency to ramble and wander in his thoughts when discussing matters with clients, anything but the matter at hand, and the common suspicion of why he did this was to increase his billable hours – but this was a falsity. Klein’s thoughts followed no main channel, but circled in the backwaters and eddies of a moment. Adding to his distraction was the arrangement of his office, in a large room filled with tangential décor, Minnesota Twins baseball souvenirs and patriotic colors. All of it led to meandering.
Ray said, "Renee will get the money and the boys will get the land. That’s what this says?" His finger tapped the paper.
"Yes, Ray, yes, it’s in that line there," said the aging Klein, pulling on one . . . → Read More: The Plenty: Chapter 29
Rather than brooding in her car on a dirt road or in a parking lot, as Josh expected, this time Kathy drove to Tonnamowoc and stalked the library for materials on separation and divorce. The card-catalog pointed her to self-help sections and memoir, but she wanted a manual. A how-to guide. The search became tiresome, unfruitful, and she stepped into the lobby of the library to speed things up by placing calls from the payphone.
Fidgeting and gabbing to himself, a dirty man leaned against the wall pretending to sleep, but Kathy noticed him listening to the subject and content of her calls. Soon he piped up and spoke from under his filthy Minnesota Twins hat.
"Getting out of a bad situation, are you, lady? I know a guy who could help."
"Pardon me?" Kathy said, pressing the phone against her shirt.
"I know a guy who could help . . . → Read More: The Plenty: Chapter 28
“No, Mop!” said Bryce, tugging a cardboard box away from his father’s hands. “Mine.” The empty Coke case traveled from room to room for several weeks, performing several functions for Bryce – as a table for his toy train, as a place to store stolen tissue from the roll in the bathroom, and as a weapon for chasing the dog. But the primary use of the Coke case was as a hat. The large rectangular shape blocked the boy’s eyes when he donned it. In darkness, he felt his way around the kitchen and living room, inevitably running into corners and table legs.
“No!” said Bryce for no apparent reason, using his favorite word. Josh’s patience grew thin over the boy’s insubordination. With Rhea, he could nudge her behavior using carrots-and-sticks, rewarding her with candy or disallowing her favorite TV show. The same methods worked with employees. But not with . . . → Read More: The Plenty: Chapter 27
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