Will Morris be able to put his old ghosts to rest, or will a series of bad decisions leave him as broken as Henry? The author’s prose is breezy and straightforward, as when the bisexual Morris describes his days rooming with the gay Henry: “Sometimes they had sex, but most times, they didn’t. This unintended extension of his off-season stay in the small town promises additional drunken nights and additional run-ins with Henry and his hard-living crowd. A townwide electrical blackout provides Morris an opportunity to escape the bar before the past can be dredged up, but he misses his flight the next morning and can’t get a new one for two more days. Morris’ history with Henry is complex, and he isn’t thrilled to run into him-especially given how run-down Henry looks, with a puffy face and burns on his hands. There, he runs into Henry, an old friend from college whom Morris has not seen for a decade. Now, on his last night in town before returning home to Washington, D.C., and his fiancee, Yasmin, Morris has wandered into the Public House, a dive bar with no signage, patronized mostly by locals. In Harper’s debut literary novel, a writer’s trip to an artsy town becomes an interminable nightmare.įor the past week, aspiring writer Morris Hines has been staying (and drinking) at the Manderlay Colony, an artists residence where he’d hoped to make some headway on his fantasy novel.
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