'Hell yes to this exceptional collection of ferocious dispatches from an America that mostly gets flown over, talked over, stripped for parts, and then ignored until there's something to blame it for . . . Hicksters is feral, foul, great-hearted, unflinching, and true' JUSTIN TAYLOR, author of Reboot
'Hicksters is singular and spectacular . . . an honest, gritty, and intimate view of a place and its people, their decline and resilience, pathos and pride, softness and steel core . . . entertaining, heartbreaking, down-to-earth, needle-sharp, wild, and wildly funny' LAUREN ACAMPORA author of The Animal Room
'Rough and tender stories -- the wild kind you hear after everyone else at the party has stumbled off to sleep' BUD SMITH, author of Teenager
McKean County, Pennsylvania is the setting for Jake Maynard's audacious collection of linked short stories. Once the oil capital of the world, all that's left to show for it now is a single pump-jack, rocking like a drinking bird next to a McDonald's drive-thru. Every few years, a liberal news outlet comes to do a story, each time finding a new angle for what that pump-jack says about the area and its people.
But to the locals, it's just an oil well in a parking lot. They have more material concerns.
A recovering addict debates whether to share her prescription opioids with her wayward daughter. A heartsick young woman returns to her hometown and makes a move on her old science teacher. A creative writing professor spars with an incel student who gets under his skin. Two buddies cook up a scheme to try and get laid. A phone-sex worker spirals in the wake of a failed insurance scam.
Jake Maynard's interconnected stories reveal the lives of people straddling disparate worlds: urban and rural, addicted and sober, analogue and digital. With a potent style and clear love for place and people, Hicksters delivers an irreverent, provocative and deeply felt portrait of Rust Belt America.
