Once again I am highlighting an unknown author, Michael Piafsky. His new book titled ALL THE HAPPINESS YOU DESERVE debuts February 1st in Canada and the United States. It's literary fiction and tells the story of a man's life
in a most unusual way.....through 78 chapters patterned on the Tarot Deck.
Michael Piafsky is Director of Creative Writing and Associate Professor of English at Spring Hill College, in Mobile, Alabama. His recent fiction and nonfiction has appeared in The Missouri Review, jabberwock review, Bluestem, Ocho, Meridian, Bar Stories and elsewhere. Earlier this year he was a finalist in the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers and was a finalist in the 2012 Tuscany Prize for Fiction.
Here's the BOOKLIST REVIEW of All The Happiness You Deserve by Michael Piafsky......
Piafsky's debut novel is a slow, wonderful read that slices a midwestern boy's life into vignettes. The story is delivered with a holism evocative of a John Irving novel (the father, Garland, even tries to influence the protagonist to wrestle in college), and it is very male.
Early on in the story, the mother grows weary of the father's "salesman" drinking behavior and leaves with her daughter for two years, abandoning the son to live with his boozy, meat-and-potatoes father. The dynamic between father and son becomes the novel's nucleus.
As the son moves to Boston to attend college, and, eventually, to Seattle and New York, the father notes, "This one here . . . seems to have made it his life's mission to move as far away from home as possible."
There is abandonment, early tragedy, girlfriends, and money, and yet, Piafsky ultimately asks, do we ever truly leave home?
This isn't an easy novel and the time line is uneven, but it is beautifully written and deeply rewarding. Piafsky is heading toward becoming a major writer.
MORE INFORMATION:
ALL THE HAPPINESS YOU DESERVE will be available on Amazon. You can pre-order directly from this blog by using the Amazon Search Box in the Sidebar. Please support the unknown authors featured on Joyce's Choices.
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