U.P.

a novel by RA Riekki
Publication date: 11/15/2008
232 pages
$19.95

From a bold new novelist comes a complex tale of friendship and brutality. Set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, U.P. is the story of four teens immersed in an ugly world, one whose threat of violence is always simmering beneath the surface. R.A. Riekki’s distinctive characters and their poignant quest for freedom is a swan song to lost youth, redefining the traditional coming-of- age-story. Four boys, four distinct narratives that converge into a harrowing and heartbreaking whole.

What critics are saying:

“I wish Kurt Vonnegut were alive to read U.P. He’d love it. He’d love it as much as he loved Breece Pancake and Deborah Eisenberg. I’m not just guessing. On my own hook I can say that R.A. Riekki’s novel is a brilliant fierce rush—sometimes harsh, sometimes funny, always so immediate you can hear it. This book is alive.”

John Casey, author of Testimony and Demeanor and Spartina

“Okay: I was one of R.A.’s teachers, but I didn’t see this manuscript until classes were over. And I love it. It is the most unworkshop-like novel I can imagine, and every word—every comma—rings true. It’s got a little bit of rap and a whole lot of soul. Please: can we now stop reading A Separate Peace and read U.P.?

Ann Beattie, author of Chilly Scenes of Winter

PREORDER TODAY
Book will ship  November 1

Honorary Astronaut

Poems by Nate Pritts
$13.95

With intense energy, vivacity of mind, and deft thought, Nate Pritts whips metaphor into the heady meringue of being so he can jump out of his own lemony birthday pie and make a romantically existential wish over all our secret monologues. Honorary Astronaut is not only vastly entertaining but so humanly important you’ve already received your invitation. Come as you are.
Jack Myers, author of The Portable Poetry Workshop

Nate Pritts brings to the vast spaces of human emotion a vivid voice and an undiluted enthusiasm. Loss is a kind of joy here, filling the sky with its balloons. Passionate, playful, crafted—Honorary Astronaut settles into orbit with an exclamation point all its own!
Judith Kitchen, author of Short Takes: Brief Encounters with Contemporary Nonfiction

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Will ship 10/10/2008