Penelope Variations

by J.R. Hamilton

This is, unfortunately, a cattle call query. Like on a dating site, where women hate generic messages, this is a generic query, which I know isn't likely to elicit a response. I would like to do my research and write something heartfelt, but, there are so many agents, and, generally heartfelt messages go unreturned anyway on dating sites and in life. So, please, bear with me, though I'm relying totally on serendipity here, and if this project is way out in left field, I apologize in advance. Penelope Variations is a 76,000-word short story collection about alcoholism and mental illness. The narrator, Charlie, links the stories, many of which are about botched relationships that serve as points along the map of his dysfunction. The stories take you through his drinking years, and his attempts at sobriety. The book doesn't tell an entirely hopeful story, with Charlie, in the end, finding sobriety but also a hard-nosed fatalism, where he submits to life even when it seems hopeless.

214 pages, Hardcover

Published August 30, 2018