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Dave Fitzgerald rated a book it was amazing Scumbag Summer by Jillian Luft	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
From middle school through about mid-college, my family took yearly vacations to Panama City Beach. We had a sweet deal on a house just two blocks from the ocean, through a church friend who also regularly rented it out for youth retreats. As beach t ...more
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Dave Fitzgerald rated a book it was amazing Scumbag Summer by Jillian Luft	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
From middle school through about mid-college, my family took yearly vacations to Panama City Beach. We had a sweet deal on a house just two blocks from the ocean, through a church friend who also regularly rented it out for youth retreats. As beach t ...more
Mar 02, 2026 08:27AM · 2 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Scumbag Summer by Jillian Luft. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Scumbag Summer by Jillian Luft <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Dave Fitzgerald rated a book it was amazing Us Fools by Nora Lange	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
My wife grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and is the younger of two sisters whose father worked much of his life as a feed salesman, so when she barreled through Nora Lange's Us Fools - a novel of sisters growing up in rural Illinois during the farm crisis ...more
Jan 13, 2026 09:03AM · 2 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Us Fools by Nora Lange. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Us Fools by Nora Lange <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Dave Fitzgerald is now following Benjamin Ray Allee Author of Mediac
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Dave Fitzgerald rated a book it was amazing The Holy Day by Christopher Norris (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Christopher Norris makes words do things they don’t normally do, and this book will make you doff your readers and hold it up and out as far as you can – really stretch – so as to better survey its fiendish, occult designs. Awash in the misgiving ima ...more
Jan 05, 2026 09:34AM · 1 like · like · see review
Dave Fitzgerald rated a book it was amazing In the Sight by Tobias Carroll (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book was, by its back cover’s own admission, “loosely inspired by Destroyer’s 2002 album This Night”, but while reading it the only soundtrack I could imagine was one by John Carpenter (or possibly Tangerine Dream). In its caromsome gas station ...more
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Dave Fitzgerald rated a book it was amazing Us Fools by Nora Lange	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
My wife grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and is the younger of two sisters whose father worked much of his life as a feed salesman, so when she barreled through Nora Lange's Us Fools - a novel of sisters growing up in rural Illinois during the farm crisis ...more
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Dave Fitzgerald rated a book really liked it Pop. 1280 (Mulholland Classic) by Jim Thompson	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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From middle school through about mid-college, my family took yearly vacations to Panama City Beach. We had a sweet deal on a house just two blocks from the ocean, through a church friend who also regularly rented it out for youth retreats. As beach t From middle school through about mid-college, my family took yearly vacations to Panama City Beach. We had a sweet deal on a house just two blocks from the ocean, through a church friend who also regularly rented it out for youth retreats. As beach trips go, these were hardly MTV Spring Break, but they weren't without their sneakaway snogs and consummate teenage lather. I'd go so far as to wager I've spent more time horny and sober in PCB than most people have spent horny and drunk, and as such, I have a wealth of crystal clear, formatively sensual memories set in and around sunny trash Florida. And Scumbag Summer took me back to them all.

String bikinis strolling the aisles of Walmart. Seedy nightclubs nestled inside crumbling malls. Daydrinkers tripping over their flip-flops, out of R-rated matinees and into family style seafood restaurants. It's a crowded, disorienting kind of madness, Florida, where subtext and sext are never more than a boardwalk away. And that's just my wide-eyed adolescence ogling from the outside-looking-in on a small (if notorious) resort town. The narrator of Jillian Luft's Scumbag Summer is a Sunshine State lifer, and she's been on the inside long enough to no longer be fooled by all this clashing pastel and neon; this Kingdom of cheap thrillride Magic. She's shucked ambition like an Atlantic oyster, declared her allegiance to life as is, and art unto death, and learned to love her sunsick city sandspurs and all (seriously, Luft's pg. 15 paean to Orlando should be under glass at the OMA. Or maybe the aquarium. Or at least inside the Epcot Dome). Learned, that is, until him.

Our heroine's new boss is an older man. Not that much older, but older enough to be labeled as such. He has a wife. He has two children. He is just barely managing a wicked-hahd drug problem (I say it this way because he is originally from trash New England). And he is everything. Their affair builds slowly, slinkily, like the 80's rock anthems they both unironically love, through butterflies and stolen glances, brushed fingertips and crackling sodium vapor chemistry, and then suddenly turns torrid over needledrop .38 Special.

Luft makes direct reference to the oft-(unfairly)-derided 80's erotic barnburner 91/2 Weeks, and the comparison feels both earned and apt. Scumbag Summer is hot as fuck, but rarely uses the word. Rather, it harkens back to how people wrote about sex before the rough language of porn thrust its way rudely unlubed into the lexicon. Rather than "pussy" and "cock", we read of "wetness" and "bulge". Rather than degradation and hookups, we read of titillation and longing. It's still dirty - electrically so, don't get me wrong - (our girl cums, a lot) - but in a way that feels sweet. Fun. Even respectful. Such that you never once forget the very real love undergirding all the lust.

And the love, it is big. Seismic. Cataclysmic. The kind it's hard to even talk about to its object, let alone convey to someone else in words. The kind that logic and responsibility play no part in. The kind you give into because you can't fathom living with the alternative. The kind that washes over you like a wave, pulls you under until you drown, and deposits you naked and shuddering on the opposite shore. I won't pretend to know how much of Luft is wrapped up in this character, but it's clear she knows from the love of which she writes. And when it all comes crashing down - as it only ever could - she writes just as brilliantly of heartbreak and grief; of the way "I miss you" can become a weapon - a plea for undeserved pity that still doesn't quite mean "I love you"; of the way being the dumpee can feel like a double betrayal, both by the dumper, and by yourself for letting your guard down - for believing you could ever have or be more than what you already do and are.

It's funny, for all the horny Florida memories this book stirred up, the thing it reminded me of most was these weird gaming machines you used to see down there, where you drop a quarter through a slot at the top onto a series of slow-moving platforms in hopes that your quarter will push a bunch more quarters over the edge and into the collection tray at the bottom. A quick Google search tells me they're called Coin Pushers, and they were absolutely everywhere - souvenir shops, movie theaters, grocery stores, malls, restaurants, gas stations - everywhere. They were basically slot machines for kids, and they were such a racket you'd be forgiven for wondering if they were all owned by the Florida mob. They're the kind of thing that can convince you it requires skill, but is still mostly just luck, and that, I think, is a pretty good metaphor when it comes to dating and heartbreak and love.

Especially now, with all the fucking apps, we're all just dropping our quarters in and seeing what shakes loose at the bottom. Sometimes we strike out. Sometimes we hit it so big we think we'll be rich forever. But the platforms never stop moving, and life is a perpetual motherfucker. Sooner or later, almost everyone loses everything, at least once, and has to scrounge up a new quarter and talk themselves into trying again. Luft's been there. You can tell. She's written a Victoria's Secret bodiceripper that wears its heart on its Charlotte Russe sleeve. Scumbag Summer will remind you of all your real ones, whoever they are or were. Wherever trash Florida was for you. ...more

Dave Fitzgerald rated a book it was amazing

Scumbag Summer
by Jillian Luft

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

From middle school through about mid-college, my family took yearly vacations to Panama City Beach. We had a sweet deal on a house just two blocks from the ocean, through a church friend who also regularly rented it out for youth retreats. As beach t From middle school through about mid-college, my family took yearly vacations to Panama City Beach. We had a sweet deal on a house just two blocks from the ocean, through a church friend who also regularly rented it out for youth retreats. As beach trips go, these were hardly MTV Spring Break, but they weren't without their sneakaway snogs and consummate teenage lather. I'd go so far as to wager I've spent more time horny and sober in PCB than most people have spent horny and drunk, and as such, I have a wealth of crystal clear, formatively sensual memories set in and around sunny trash Florida. And Scumbag Summer took me back to them all.

String bikinis strolling the aisles of Walmart. Seedy nightclubs nestled inside crumbling malls. Daydrinkers tripping over their flip-flops, out of R-rated matinees and into family style seafood restaurants. It's a crowded, disorienting kind of madness, Florida, where subtext and sext are never more than a boardwalk away. And that's just my wide-eyed adolescence ogling from the outside-looking-in on a small (if notorious) resort town. The narrator of Jillian Luft's Scumbag Summer is a Sunshine State lifer, and she's been on the inside long enough to no longer be fooled by all this clashing pastel and neon; this Kingdom of cheap thrillride Magic. She's shucked ambition like an Atlantic oyster, declared her allegiance to life as is, and art unto death, and learned to love her sunsick city sandspurs and all (seriously, Luft's pg. 15 paean to Orlando should be under glass at the OMA. Or maybe the aquarium. Or at least inside the Epcot Dome). Learned, that is, until him.

Our heroine's new boss is an older man. Not that much older, but older enough to be labeled as such. He has a wife. He has two children. He is just barely managing a wicked-hahd drug problem (I say it this way because he is originally from trash New England). And he is everything. Their affair builds slowly, slinkily, like the 80's rock anthems they both unironically love, through butterflies and stolen glances, brushed fingertips and crackling sodium vapor chemistry, and then suddenly turns torrid over needledrop .38 Special.

Luft makes direct reference to the oft-(unfairly)-derided 80's erotic barnburner 91/2 Weeks, and the comparison feels both earned and apt. Scumbag Summer is hot as fuck, but rarely uses the word. Rather, it harkens back to how people wrote about sex before the rough language of porn thrust its way rudely unlubed into the lexicon. Rather than "pussy" and "cock", we read of "wetness" and "bulge". Rather than degradation and hookups, we read of titillation and longing. It's still dirty - electrically so, don't get me wrong - (our girl cums, a lot) - but in a way that feels sweet. Fun. Even respectful. Such that you never once forget the very real love undergirding all the lust.

And the love, it is big. Seismic. Cataclysmic. The kind it's hard to even talk about to its object, let alone convey to someone else in words. The kind that logic and responsibility play no part in. The kind you give into because you can't fathom living with the alternative. The kind that washes over you like a wave, pulls you under until you drown, and deposits you naked and shuddering on the opposite shore. I won't pretend to know how much of Luft is wrapped up in this character, but it's clear she knows from the love of which she writes. And when it all comes crashing down - as it only ever could - she writes just as brilliantly of heartbreak and grief; of the way "I miss you" can become a weapon - a plea for undeserved pity that still doesn't quite mean "I love you"; of the way being the dumpee can feel like a double betrayal, both by the dumper, and by yourself for letting your guard down - for believing you could ever have or be more than what you already do and are.

It's funny, for all the horny Florida memories this book stirred up, the thing it reminded me of most was these weird gaming machines you used to see down there, where you drop a quarter through a slot at the top onto a series of slow-moving platforms in hopes that your quarter will push a bunch more quarters over the edge and into the collection tray at the bottom. A quick Google search tells me they're called Coin Pushers, and they were absolutely everywhere - souvenir shops, movie theaters, grocery stores, malls, restaurants, gas stations - everywhere. They were basically slot machines for kids, and they were such a racket you'd be forgiven for wondering if they were all owned by the Florida mob. They're the kind of thing that can convince you it requires skill, but is still mostly just luck, and that, I think, is a pretty good metaphor when it comes to dating and heartbreak and love.

Especially now, with all the fucking apps, we're all just dropping our quarters in and seeing what shakes loose at the bottom. Sometimes we strike out. Sometimes we hit it so big we think we'll be rich forever. But the platforms never stop moving, and life is a perpetual motherfucker. Sooner or later, almost everyone loses everything, at least once, and has to scrounge up a new quarter and talk themselves into trying again. Luft's been there. You can tell. She's written a Victoria's Secret bodiceripper that wears its heart on its Charlotte Russe sleeve. Scumbag Summer will remind you of all your real ones, whoever they are or were. Wherever trash Florida was for you. ...more

Dave Fitzgerald rated a book it was amazing

Us Fools
by Nora Lange

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My wife grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and is the younger of two sisters whose father worked much of his life as a feed salesman, so when she barreled through Nora Lange's Us Fools - a novel of sisters growing up in rural Illinois during the farm crisis My wife grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and is the younger of two sisters whose father worked much of his life as a feed salesman, so when she barreled through Nora Lange's Us Fools - a novel of sisters growing up in rural Illinois during the farm crisis of the 1980's - in a matter of days, and immediately, nonnegotiably added it to my TBR pile, I had a feeling it might be something special, both for its potential insights into her windswept, midwestern youth (an environment vastly different from my own upbringing in the suburban South), and into a criminally rug-swept chapter in our nation's history - one which resulted in hundreds of suicides, hundred-thousands of forclosures, and of which the socioeconomic effects are still being felt to this day. And its pre-vetted status as a publication of Two Dollar Radio, one of the most consistently excellent small presses in the game, didn't hurt either.

Even with all that said, however, no amount of year-end besticles and awards season hype could have prepared me for just how wonderful this book is. I too devoured it in less than a week, and upon reaching the final page felt maybe my rarest, and most highly complimentary response to finishing any literary work: I wished there was more. Though hardly a fan of IP-factories or extended universes, I would gladly follow Lange's fascinatingly original characters - both the striving, efflorescent wallflower Bernie and her hellbent, anarcho-kamikaze older sister Jo - through the entire rest of their lives (though as Lange has stated that the book is more than a little bit autobiographical, I suppose those lives are still being lived). Even so, I shamelessly hold out hope for a sequel.

Whatever she chooses to write about next (indeed, her story collection Day Care is already forthcoming from 2$R), Us Fools surely marks the debut of a preternaturally talented new name in indie lit. Lange's deft command of both poetic wordplay and propulsive storytelling (even when the story she's telling is literally going nowhere), displays a whip-smart sense of humor, and a mastery of craft most authors would die for (and I say this as one such myself). Even when this intricate, nuanced, and deeply personal tale rises above itself - up into its clouded big sky - to comment more broadly on the nature of artistic identity, feminist disenchantment, familial interdependency, and the ongoing desertification of the American dream, you never lose sight of the very eloquent, yes, but also very real and hard-won voice sharing it with you. Where so much autofiction can feel hermetic and diaristic, Lange's is irrepressibly conversational. She's reaching out; telling us how it is for her; asking if we've ever felt the same. In this way, reading Us Fools feels like making a new friend at a roadhouse bar in a snowstorm, whiling away the hours until it's safe to brave the way home. And with America feeling more treacherous by the day, that's the kind of friend we all need more of. ...more

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The Holy Day
by Christopher Norris (Goodreads Author)

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Christopher Norris makes words do things they don’t normally do, and this book will make you doff your readers and hold it up and out as far as you can – really stretch – so as to better survey its fiendish, occult designs. Awash in the misgiving ima ...more

Dave Fitzgerald rated a book it was amazing

In the Sight
by Tobias Carroll (Goodreads Author)

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This book was, by its back cover’s own admission, “loosely inspired by Destroyer’s 2002 album This Night”, but while reading it the only soundtrack I could imagine was one by John Carpenter (or possibly Tangerine Dream). In its caromsome gas station ...more

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In the Sight
by Tobias Carroll (Goodreads Author)

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Dave Fitzgerald rated a book it was amazing

Us Fools
by Nora Lange

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My wife grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and is the younger of two sisters whose father worked much of his life as a feed salesman, so when she barreled through Nora Lange's Us Fools - a novel of sisters growing up in rural Illinois during the farm crisis My wife grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and is the younger of two sisters whose father worked much of his life as a feed salesman, so when she barreled through Nora Lange's Us Fools - a novel of sisters growing up in rural Illinois during the farm crisis of the 1980's - in a matter of days, and immediately, nonnegotiably added it to my TBR pile, I had a feeling it might be something special, both for its potential insights into her windswept, midwestern youth (an environment vastly different from my own upbringing in the suburban South), and into a criminally rug-swept chapter in our nation's history - one which resulted in hundreds of suicides, hundred-thousands of forclosures, and of which the socioeconomic effects are still being felt to this day. And its pre-vetted status as a publication of Two Dollar Radio, one of the most consistently excellent small presses in the game, didn't hurt either.

Even with all that said, however, no amount of year-end besticles and awards season hype could have prepared me for just how wonderful this book is. I too devoured it in less than a week, and upon reaching the final page felt maybe my rarest, and most highly complimentary response to finishing any literary work: I wished there was more. Though hardly a fan of IP-factories or extended universes, I would gladly follow Lange's fascinatingly original characters - both the striving, efflorescent wallflower Bernie and her hellbent, anarcho-kamikaze older sister Jo - through the entire rest of their lives (though as Lange has stated that the book is more than a little bit autobiographical, I suppose those lives are still being lived). Even so, I shamelessly hold out hope for a sequel.

Whatever she chooses to write about next (indeed, her story collection Day Care is already forthcoming from 2$R), Us Fools surely marks the debut of a preternaturally talented new name in indie lit. Lange's deft command of both poetic wordplay and propulsive storytelling (even when the story she's telling is literally going nowhere), displays a whip-smart sense of humor, and a mastery of craft most authors would die for (and I say this as one such myself). Even when this intricate, nuanced, and deeply personal tale rises above itself - up into its clouded big sky - to comment more broadly on the nature of artistic identity, feminist disenchantment, familial interdependency, and the ongoing desertification of the American dream, you never lose sight of the very eloquent, yes, but also very real and hard-won voice sharing it with you. Where so much autofiction can feel hermetic and diaristic, Lange's is irrepressibly conversational. She's reaching out; telling us how it is for her; asking if we've ever felt the same. In this way, reading Us Fools feels like making a new friend at a roadhouse bar in a snowstorm, whiling away the hours until it's safe to brave the way home. And with America feeling more treacherous by the day, that's the kind of friend we all need more of. ...more

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Pop. 1280 (Mulholland Classic)
by Jim Thompson

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Pop. 1280 (Mulholland Classic)
by Jim Thompson

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