Trouble Finds You

by Joshua Marie Wilkinson

To say Harry Stables’s life has hit a bit of a low patch lately is an understatement. In his mid-20s, he’s been kicked out of his MFA program for fighting, his ex-girlfriend turned down his spur-of-the-moment marriage proposal, and he’s spent the last ten days in his dad’s falling-down Montana fishing cabin with his dog Greta trying to find out how his mother really died when he was a baby, something his father – now dying himself of cancer – has refused to tell either him or his sister their whole lives. On top of all this, he’s just been to a party outside Missoula where he received a nasty dog bite and where he may have been an accessory to a fatal shooting. Ignoring the advice of both his sister and Calvin Hogan – fishing guide, old friend of his father’s, and companion to the lovable mutt Herkimer – Harry first tries to untangle the details of the shooting himself and eventually winds up on the lam, pursued by persecutors both real and imagined. As the cops and the accumulated psychic weight of his actions bears down on him, Harry must ultimately reckon with what sort of man he will be. To say Harry Stables’s life has hit a bit of a low patch lately is an understatement. In his mid-20s, he’s been kicked out of his MFA program for fighting, his ex-girlfriend turned down his spur-of-the-moment marriage proposal, and he’s spent the last ten days in his dad’s falling-down Montana fishing cabin with his dog Greta trying to find out how his mother really died when he was a baby, something his father – now dying himself of cancer – has refused to tell either him or his sister their whole lives. On top of all this, he’s just been to a party outside Missoula where he received a nasty dog bite and where he may have been an accessory to a fatal shooting. Ignoring the advice of both his sister and Calvin Hogan – fishing guide, old friend of his father’s, and companion to the lovable mutt Herkimer – Harry first tries to untangle the details of the shooting himself and eventually winds up on the lam, pursued by persecutors both real and imagined. As the cops and the accumulated psychic weight of his actions bears down on him, Harry must ultimately reckon with what sort of man he will be.

According to George Saunders, “literature is a form of fondness-for-life. It is love for life taking verbal form” and so it is with Trouble Finds You, a modern-day Portis-like quixotic road trip replete with stumbling beauty and searing folly. Set against the beauty of the American West, this is a novel of many a thriller, a mystery, a coming-of-age story, and a family drama. It is populated with characters – these men and their excellent dogs – who are sometimes frustrating, frequently stupid, often funny, but always full of life. Harry Stables bears more than a passing resemblance to the Coen brothers’ Llewyn Davis, a lovable curmudgeon committed to a quest of his own design.

348 pages, Paperback

Published September 12, 2023

About the author

Joshua Marie Wilkinson is the author or editor of fifteen books, the most recent of which is his debut novel, Trouble Finds You (Fonograf 2023).

He lives in Portland, Oregon, in the United States, with the writer Lisa Wells, where they serve as series editors, with Mark Levine, of the Kuhl House Poets series for University of Iowa Press.

His work has appeared in Poetry, Tin House, The Believer, Iowa Review, A Public Space, and many others. After many years in academia, he now works as a psychotherapist.

Reviews

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read. Found at Powells books in Portland in the small press section. But I’m not sure why this kid was running. He like didn’t do anything bad in the first place and doesn’t really do anything himself to end the trouble. Trouble didn’t really find him in the first place but a resolution did. Aside from my confusion about the stakes, this really was a good moody page turner. I’ll def keep my eyes peeled for more from the author and this press.