Thursday, August 23, 2012

The Slow Constellations Wheeled On: A Novel

For Consideration: The Slow Constellations Wheeled On, by David Wayne Hampton (Maul & Froe Press 2012)
-- available September 30th from Amazon.com, or your local bookstore

"From this coming-of-age novel, set in Boone, North Carolina, and southwest Virginia, spins a stellar story of country-fried innocence striving to be worldly, and marks the debut of an authentic new voice -- our own Silas House. We expect great things from him in the years to come!" – J.W. Williamson, founding editor of Appalachian Journal and author of Hillbillyland

"Like his main character can deliver pizza, David Wayne Hampton can deliver a novel. The Slow Constellations Wheeled On is full of wit and terror, tomato sauce and pepperoni -- an emotional roller coaster for the palate. Eat it by the slice, but eat it all. It’s worth the extra tip.” -- Jim Minick, author of The Blueberry Years

"The Slow Constellations Wheeled On belies its title. David Wayne Hampton has written a swift, fun read, deadly accurate in its details of youth, badassery, amorous confusions, and pizza delivery. On almost every page I found something about which I could say, “Oh Lord, I remember that!” I laughed and went red-faced reading this novel, laughing and embarrassed at myself all the way .... Constellations seethes with life – like a shook-up can of Budweiser." -- Fred Chappell, former NC Poet Laureate and author of Shadow Box

Randall is an ambitious boy trying to survive in a college town. He is also secretly a teenage runaway. His parents’ failing marriage and a growing impatience to escape his small town prompts him to start a new life for himself. Precariously playing the part of a 21-year-old, while balancing school and his job in pizza delivery, is a bigger challenge than he thought, especially with the temptations of college life at every turn. He wants to make it on his own, yet battles the despair and loneliness of living a lie that both repels him from and pulls him back to his troubles at home. He meets new friends, confronts his adversaries, falls in love, and learns the hard way the painful truths of the real world. His grandfather is an inspiration and voice of reason, but thoughts of his mother wrack his dreams and his conscience with guilt. It is the hardships he continually faces that may prove to be too much, though, ultimately challenging his beliefs, battering him emotionally and spiritually, bringing him to the edge of the abyss.



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