About the Book – About the Author – Prizes!!!

Welcome to another exciting publishing house spotlight tour from Novel Publicity. Join us as thee new titles from Perfect Edge–we’re calling them the Perfect Edge Triumvirate–tour the blogosphere in a way that just can’t be ignored. And, hey, we’ve got prizes!

About the book: “Diabolically delightful and perversely moving, Ryan Elliot Wilson takes us on a chaotic, engaging and excruciating journey with his train-wreck team of protagonists whom we hate to love.” ~ Moira Walley-Beckett, Writer/Co-Executive Producer, BREAKING BAD

Craft, 47, has always craved the comfort of his role as the eccentric English teacher at Earhart High in the suburbs of St. Louis. But now he finds himself in the school’s library, suffering a mysterious mental paralysis that won’t allow him to stop reading “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

Lila, 21, has a holiday-break rendezvous planned with her old mentor, Craft. Actually, Lila has many plans—and they’re not all nice. She’s feeling more than a little betrayed and bewildered after discovering that her father is not the man her mother always said. In fact, he kills people.

Duke, 17, is a high-school dropout working in the bowels of Disney World. In his room before dawn, he stuffs essentials into a backpack, preparing to leave home for the first time. It’s news to him, but he has this (disturbed?) sister, Lila, and she wants him to come to L.A. to meet her.

The altered reality Craft and these lost-and-found siblings inhabit propels them on separate journeys across America. In a landscape of angels and mirrors, allies and adversaries, Craft, Lila, and Duke converge to expose the man whose life of violence connects them. Will they find wholeness, justice, and love? Or is it all an invitation to unleash demons best left asleep?

Pick up your copy of this Literary Fiction/Coming-of-Age/Tragicomic through Amazon US, Amazon UK, or Barnes & Noble.

My Review:

Open your diary. The one from your childhood. What do you see? What do you learn? Turn the page- What if someone with ties to your family revealed a secret about your identity that changed the course of your life?

This is what happens to Lila, who reunites with her former favorite teacher and mentor after receiving this news, but it goes downhill from there.

In a crazy chain of events, she tries to figure out her purpose and make some type of resolution to her conflicted life.

Favorite Quotes:

“I’d always been able to spot what I thought were beautiful approaches to prayer in others, singers, carpenters, painters, actors, waitresses, poets too, but I had, subconsciously, written it off as impossible, or perhaps deceptive, for myself.”
“And to be sure to change her audience of one forever, she must continue to check the mirror to see which pair of eyes has elbowed its way to the front, looking out and back at her. Wanting, as everyone does, to be recognized, fully.”
“Even fools love to watch the fool fall—but more so to rise up, from something, against something, so that we may leave with the tiniest inkling that we might do the same.”
“Because Jesus, as smart as he was, should’ve known that there isn’t a teacher alive or ever lived who can teach walking on water to everybody. Which is what you sure as shit better be able to do if you’re going to love all your brothers, every last one.” (This is true, because what Jesus wanted Peter to do when he told him to walk on the water was to look at him- Jesus- only. Not the waves, not the wind or the storms of life. This is very hard to do and not many people can “walk on the water” amid the storms of their lives. More to come on this?)

Pros:

I thought there were some redeemable characters and there was a dynamic plot line.

Cons:

I felt the ending was weak and did not show a strong resolution. I did not like how the story was organized, a little too many threads that did not tie together.

This was not my favorite book, as the train wreck of characters was not ultimately redeeming.

Overall:

I would recommend this is for fans of chaotic story lines, Walt Disney fans, and those who like a unique take on literature and family conflicts, long lost siblings and doppelgangers.

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About the author: Like his characters in the novel, Ryan Elliot Wilson shunned the ambivalent hospitality of the Midwest and the bizarre mix of Hell on Earth meets Happiest Place on Earth of Florida for the great, continually unfolding spectacle of humanity that is Los Angeles. There he found his tribe of the maimed in the form of East Side poets and musicians, Hollywood agents gone mad, and socially inept high school teachers. Wilson has found this mix to be ideal for his pH. His writing can be found in the L.A. anthology, IN SEARCH OF A CITY: Los Angeles in 1000 Words, Thunderdome, Drift, and The Painted Bride Quarterly. He teaches Creative Writing, works in high school counseling, and lives in Los Feliz with his family. SPIRAL BOUND BROTHER is Wilson’s first novel. Connect with Ryan on his website, Facebook, or GoodReads.

About the prizes: Who doesn’t love prizes? You could win either of two $25 Amazon gift cards, an autographed copy of Spiral Bound Brother, or an autographed copy of one of its tour mates, Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? by Andrez Bergen or Gripped by Jason Donnelly. Here’s what you need to do…

Enter the Rafflecopter contest
Leave a comment on my blog.

That’s it! One random commenter during this tour will win a $25 gift card. Visit more blogs for more chances to win–the full list of participating bloggers can be found here. The other $25 gift card and the 3 autographed books will be given out via Rafflecopter. You can find the contest entry form linked below or on the official Perfect Edge Trifecta tour page via Novel Publicity. Good luck!

Perfect Edge Books was founded in late 2011 to unite authors whose books weren’t “obviously” commercial. Our books tend to sit in various genres all at once: literary fiction, satire, neo-noir, sci-fi, experimental prose. We believe that literary doesn’t have to mean difficult, and that difficult doesn’t just mean pointless. We prefer to cultivate a word-of-mouth approach to marketing, and keep production as simple as we can. Learn more at www.PerfectEdgeBooks.com.