Hillsboro Publishing, LLC

An Excerpt from Ripples in the Catfish Pond

 

This guy Moses had a secret, though. He could write a sex story like Anais Nin meets Dashiell Hammett meets Mark Twain. He’d been doing it since high school, scribbling out longhand fantasies and then when they’d served their purpose tearing them into little pieces and flushing them and then lying awake sweating that someone at the water treatment plant was going to find the word anal in this guy Moses’s handwriting. And now with age 40 sprinting up and mainstream success little more than a dream he thought it was time to find some readers, any readers. Readers looking for a thrill. This guy Moses said you want thrills? You can have them served up with wit and subject-verb agreement.

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Another Excerpt from Ripples in the Catfish Pond

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Somewhere in northern Indiana a couple of college guys got on and took the seats across from him. Small talk ensued. They were both going home to Pittsburgh; the curly-haired one was Matt and the one with a head like a tin can was Jonesy. Matt said he’d aced a job interview and Jonesy was just along for the ride. “Nothing else to do,” he said. “Figured I might as well try to get laid in Chicago.”

      “Did you?”

      “Only once. Where you heading?”

      “Harrisburg. Surprising my girlfriend.”

      “Nice,” said Matt. “Doesn’t know you’re coming, huh?”

      “That and we’ve never met.”

      “Holy shit, are you kidding me?” laughed Jonesy. “This is an online thing? Holy shit, I thought only us young dumb guys did that.”

      “No,” said this guy Moses, “it’s spread to us old dumb guys. We’ve been talking since last summer.”

      “Is she hot?”