I haven’t posted in a while because I’ve been busy on my next novel: The Good People of Pioneer Road.
It’s about a boy who grew up inside his family’s dream of building something together – only to discover the unseen fractures that would eventually day tear it apart. It’s a story about memory, distance, and trying to understand what was real, even long after it’s gone.
I’ve recently finished the first (of many) drafts, and am working through the second. Here’s a little snippet to whet your appetite:
You would probably have your own name for them – maybe rednecks, or hillbillies, or peckerwoods, or simply trailer trash. The people in Cedar Heights called the family Pioneers, but not with the sentiment that the word usually evokes. They got that name because they lived out in the hills, up a short dirt driveway on Pioneer Road.
Grandpa Tucker had his own terms. He called them “the clan” or “the tribe,” and, when drunk, “The Dreamers.” Jack Ellis’s mother once called them “a wild pack of ingrates,” (which Jack didn’t entirely disagree with). But it was Grandma Sharon who had the best name: The Good People of Pioneer Road.
To Jack’s knowledge, no one else used that name, but it stuck with him. Throughout those years, and the years that followed, he always thought that, no matter whatever else they were, they were The Good People of Pioneer Road.
I hope you like it!