Grenade: Hub City, Lafayette

by Doug Hebert

Ruston Delahoussaye has always known the devastating impact of a job loss, having witnessed both his father and grandfather pass away after being let go from their long-held positions. So when Ruston loses his own job of twenty-one years as a shipping clerk at a textile mill in south Louisiana due to NAFTA, he knows he must take drastic action to avoid a similar fate. With plans to make a new start, Ruston moves to Lafayette to become a writer. Despite some initial moderate success, Ruston struggles to support himself financially. When his writing opportunities dry up, he takes a job at an accounting firm to make ends meet while he works on the novel he believes will save his life. Hub City, Lafayette is the chaotic tale of one man's journey through the ups and downs of his professional and personal life, exploring the profound impacts of job loss, dysfunctional relationships, hostile work environments, and political turmoil.

243 pages, Paperback

First published August 4, 2023

About the author

I began writing in 2016. Grenade: Hub City, Lafayette is my first novel.

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really raw and richly described description of a man wanting desperately to become a published author.

Ruston Delahoussaye, a Jeanerette native living in downtown Lafayette is going through the motions that we call life. He worked in a textile mill that was shut down and ends up taking a job at an accounting firm to try make some money while writing. In this story, it’s the getting there part that he struggles with. In this story, he switches between the past and present, the past helping us to understand his present. What he experiences at that job and his relationships with women are very detailed and colorful and shape the book along with his thoughts and wishes.

The theme and plot of Grenade is good and it reads easily. I’ll definitely give a warning that the language can be rough and sexual themes are detailed but, that language helps to describe our character and his point of view. I think Doug did a great job with this story and I can’t wait to see what his next story will be. Four stars for a truly real life story, bonus points that it’s set in Lafayette and surrounding areas in Louisiana that are familiar to me. I always enjoy Louisiana fiction.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyman that has put ink to paper to tell a story has a voice that is worth being heard. Such is this. A diary of sorts, encompassing the labored moments of an in-between time- and I know it well - when the the call to write, to create, is as strong and necessary as breath and as impossible as taking flight. The whole world conspires to keep you from the page: the dishes in the sink, the ‘real’ job, the laundry, the rain, every blinking screen, people, coming in and out of focus, and still it’s there, like a dissatisfied and demanding lover, hungry for attention. This is that story, the one that emerges, engulfs,and comes to life born from life.

[Evelyn Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grenade: Hub City, Lafayette by Doug Hebert is a deeply human and piercing exploration of loss, reinvention, and the quiet battles that define working-class life in modern America.

Through the eyes of Ruston Delahoussaye, a man shaped by generations of struggle and hard-won dignity, Hebert captures the slow-burning despair and raw determination that come when everything you’ve built begins to crumble. What begins as a story of unemployment transforms into something more profound a meditation on purpose, identity, and the will to keep creating even when the world seems to have stopped listening.

Hebert’s prose is sharp, honest, and resonant with lived experience. His depiction of Lafayette its textures, sounds, and contradictions feels vividly alive, grounding Ruston’s journey in a world that is as unpredictable as it is familiar. The novel speaks to anyone who has ever stared down failure, who has had to rebuild from ashes while clinging to a fragile sense of self.

Grenade: Hub City, Lafayette is not merely a story of survival it’s a testament to the human spirit’s refusal to surrender. Hebert gives voice to the quiet, often overlooked resilience of everyday people, crafting a narrative that lingers long after the last page.