Country Hardball

by Steve Weddle

Overview

After more than a decade spent in and out of juvenile detention, halfway houses, and jail, Roy Alison returns to his rural hometown determined to do better, to be better. But what he finds is a working-class community devastated by the economic downturn—a town without anything to hold onto but the past.

Staying with his grandmother, Roy discovers a family history of good intentions and bad choices, of making do without much chance of doing better. Around him, families lose their sons to war, hunting accidents, drugs. And Roy, along with the town, falls into old patterns established generations ago.

A novel-in-stories in the tradition of Bonnie Jo Campbell, Donald Ray Pollock, Denis Johnson, and Alan Heathcock, Country Hardball is a powerfully observed and devastatingly understated portrait of the American working class.

"Steve Weddle's Country Hardball is a perfect combination of the brokenhearted and the just flat broke... Here's hoping Weddle never stops writing..." —Benjamin Whitmer, author of Pike

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440570810
Publisher:	Gallery Books
Publication date:	10/31/2013
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.78(w) x 8.42(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Steve Weddle grew up on the border of Louisiana and Arkansas. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Louisiana State University, and currently works for a newspaper group. He lives with his family in Virginia. Find out more at SteveWeddle.com.

Editorial Reviews

Steve Weddle's writing is downright dazzling in Country Hardball, a first novel told in intertwined stories that present a shattering portrait of a depressed rural area on the Arkansas-Louisiana border that seems to be reverting to its wilderness state.

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

09/02/2013
Ex-con Roy Alison would like to go straight, but he can’t seem to make up for past mistakes, and his only options are just more bad choices. Weddle’s debut novel is a suspenseful series of interrelated stories of tragedy, despair, and hopelessness in a rural Southern town. There is no joy here, as Weddle paints a vivid, depressing picture of a blue-collar community crushed by economic collapse and endemic substance abuse with characters, events, and dialogue that seem all too real. Roy easily drifts back into a world of violence and crime with his worthless cousin, Cleovis, but still harbors a desire to do right. As folks mourn for sons killed in Iraq and struggle with unemployment, Roy becomes involved in helping to carry out a string of crimes that gradually turn out to be connected. These are gritty stories of people facing nothing but bad options, though Roy eventually manages to make something good come from his situation. The most powerful image, however, is Weddle’s description of an old lady who keeps all her hopes in a little box—one that’s empty. Agent: Stacia Decker, Donald Maass Literary Agency. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Steve Weddle's Country Hardball is a perfect combination of the brokenhearted and the just flat broke... Here's hoping Weddle never stops writing..." —Benjamin Whitmer, author of Pike

“Steve Weddle’s writing is downright dazzling in a first novel told in intertwined stories that present a shattering portrait of a depressed rural area on the Arkansas-Louisiana border that seems to be reverting to its wilderness state. Several of the narratives are seen through the eyes of Roy Alison, fresh out of prison and looking to start a new life. But things have changed since he’s been away: There’s no work, drugs are rampant, families are breaking up, people are losing their homes to the banks, children are giving themselves up to casual cruelty and the boys who went off to war are dying. In this climate of despair, it doesn’t take Roy long to hook up with his scary cousin Cleovis to pull off a string of crimes that somehow make him feel alive in this land of the living dead.” – the New York Times

"These skillfully wrought interconnected stories form a debut novel that is relentless in describing the lives of people who are captives not only of their environment but also of their own histories." —Booklist

"Weddle paints a vivid, depressing picture of a blue-collar community crushed by economic collapse and endemic substance abuse with characters, events, and dialogue that seem all too real." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

2013-10-01
Calling itself a "novel-in-stories," this debut collection of 20 tales takes a close, respectful look at poor folks in contemporary rural Arkansas. Members of several families recur: Dalton, Pribble, Womack, Tatum; women named Staci, MeChell and Birdie; men named Rusty, Cleo and Skinny Dennis. Many of the stories are vignettes. Together, they paint a grim picture of a community that may or may not have been prosperous once but now is not. The few who have made it out into the world play baseball, and more than a few flamed out. Some went to war, and those that returned are damaged. The victim of one of several violent episodes wanted to be a phlebotomist and was considered ambitious. Crime is endemic. The title story has the makings of a backwoods police procedural, the deputies getting a whiff of corruption they can do nothing about while keeping an eye on the lowlifes. Fine descriptions, all of people, enliven the plain writing. Here, a father looks at his sleeping son: "He looked at what was left of the boy, skin tight over points of bone. A sprawling, dull tattoo on his chest, never finished. Maybe it was supposed to have been a dragon. Or smoke." Here, a criminal sizes up a potential victim: "He was a big guy, skin tight like a child's balloon twisted into the shape of a man." Except for one Roy Alison, we don't hear much of the characters' inner lives, as if deprivation has atrophied their capacity to reflect. The final three stories examine whether or not Roy will change his ways. Dark, noirish and worth a look.

Kirkus Reviews