About the Book:
When Jamie Paddock learns of his father's suicide, memories of his childhood in West Virginia come roaring back. Jaime lives in New York City, developing marketing videos for YouTube, struggling to write and partying a lot — all while suppressing the accent that gives him away. But now, Jamie has to go home, to stay with his disabled mother and sister in their trailer (conveniently located between two Walmarts). Always poorer than the local coal miners, Jamie's family relies on welfare, scraping by from meal to meal, prescription to prescription. Nothing much has changed, except for Jamie, and the fact that his father’s corpse has yet to be recovered. This may be the reason there are no funeral plans, but the unanswered questions surrounding his father’s death pull Jamie further into his past, even as his adopted city lures him back.
In West Virginia, Joe Halstead writes with honesty and compassion about the state he grew up in, and returned to, in this debut novel about one young man's search for answers and personal reckoning. West Virginia is an unflinching portrait of the people of Appalachia and life in a difficult, beautiful, and often misunderstood place. Author Bud Smith said, "Joe Halstead's West Virginia is devastating and thrilling."
About the Author:
Joe Halstead divides his time between Beckley, West Virginia and Lexington, KY. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Five Quarterly, People Holding, Cheat River Review, Sundog Lit, The Stockholm Review, Sheepshead Review, and others. West Virginia is his first novel.
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