Books

About A Parlor Girl’s Guide

Synopsis:

A cynical country girl enlists the living and the dead to guide her past family tragedy and forge her escape from a secluded Southern brothel. After her father’s murder and mother’s abonnement, a merciless landowner forces Molly Lingo to work in a rural Alabama hunting lodge that doubles as an exclusive whorehouse. Molly, the feisty tough teenage daughter of a hand-to-mouth tobacco farmer, employs a troubled gambler and a mysterious specter to assist her in breaking away from the unrelenting grip of the sharecropper culture. Set at the beginning of the Jazz Age’s promising sweep across America, Molly’s story depicts both the shocking brutality of the landlord class and a young woman’s determination not to be treated as a second-class citizen. This energetic historical fiction offers supernatural thrills and the poignant transformation of a metaphysical coming-of-age tale.  Releases: March 26, 2019

Praise for A Parlor Girl’s Guide

“Part riveting historical novel, part uproarious picaresque, and above all, it’s a damn good read.” — Pinckney Benedict, Author of MIRACLE BOY AND OTHER STORIES

“A gritty portrayal of a plucky young woman of the Deep South, who is victimized by dark forces beneath the glitz and glamour of the Jazz Age.” — John Russo, Co-creator of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

“The Parlor Girl’s Guide is elegantly wrought and paced for action…” — Amos Jasper Wright IV,
Author of NOBODY KNOWS HOT IT GOT THIS GOOD

“Molly is feisty, resourceful and beautifully flawed. A truly captivating anti-heroine.” — Gisele Firmino, Author of THE MARBLE ARMY

“McCondichie is part historian, poet, raconteur, and guiding spirit through a violent, southern dreamscape…any esoteric moments of ‘soft-focus’ are viewed through barn smoke or tears.”  —JD Wilkes, Author of THE VINE THAT ATE THE SOUTH

 

About Lying For a Living

Synopsis:

Jesse Few peddles lies. His boss and clients order a couple. His married girlfriend gets a few. His family buys several. But he saves the top-of-the-line dishonesty to sell to himself.

The forty-nine-year-old suburban rogue focuses on boozing with his golf buddies, chasing much-too, younger women, and surviving the Great Recession that’s raging across the South like it’s the Big Bank’s March to the Sea. His rambling approach to life and love is challenged when his boozy mom believes she’s being stalked by her long-dead first husband and his woebegone son skirmishes with a megalomaniac preacher.  A cowboy-up moment drives him to decide whether he’ll saddle up and rescue his loved ones from these imminent threats or retreat to the familiar comforts of denial, avoidance, and blowing up watermelons with black market machine guns. This is an irreverent mid-life coming-of-age story where an unwitting father and son wrestles with his capacity to mature into a bona fide adult.

Praise for Lying for a Living

“An enjoyable page-turner with a reluctant hero who’s as engaging as he is impulsive.” — Kirkus Review

“Jesse Few isn’t a bad man. He’s just slipped a little, and then a little more, and then . . . well, you get the picture. But faced with a family crisis, Jesse answers the call in his own, inimitable way, and in the process confronts his greatest enemy—himself. This wonderfully entertaining debut, full of vivid southern characters, announces Steve McCondichie as a writer to watch,” — Naeem Murr, Winner of the COMMONWEALTH’S WRITER PRIZE

“Steve McCondichie offers readers a likable rogue in Jesse Few and quickly has us rooting for Jesse to become the lovable hero of his story. In addition to creating a memorable protagonist, McCondichie also provides us with a distinctive and surprising cast of secondary characters who keep the scenes fresh, funny, and sometimes poignant. The fact that Jesse grits his teeth and continually makes the hard choices between bad and worse options in Lying for a Living offers all of us hope for change and personal growth,” — George Weinstein, Award-winning author of AFTERMATH and HARDSCRABBLE ROAD

“Jesse Few, the hero of LYING FOR A LIVING, is a great creation, a Viagra-popping traveling paper salesman with a married girlfriend, a hot ex-wife he can’t get over, troubled children and a posse of salty golfing buddies who have his back as Jesse sets out to avoid adulthood and fails, as all the good ones do. The story of his journey to save his son moves like Jesse’s pearl-colored Escalade, barreling up the shoulder past the gridlocked traffic on the interstate.  I couldn’t resist it.” — David Payne, Author of BAREFOOT TO AVALON