Get Free eBook Sample
Skip Horack is a former Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, where he was also a Wallace Stegner Fellow. His story collection The Southern Cross won the Bread Loaf WritersConference Bakeless Fiction Prize, and his novel The Eden Hunter was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. A native of Louisiana, he is currently an assistant professor at Florida State University.
The Other Joseph: A Novel
by Skip Horack
eBook
$3.99
-
ISBN-13:
9780062300881
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
- Publication date: 03/17/2015
- Sold by: HARPERCOLLINS
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 256
- File size: 511 KB
Available on NOOK devices and apps
Want a NOOK? Explore Now
3.99
In Stock
A masterful depiction of a life driven off the rails by tragedy and sin—a man now summoned by the legacy of a beloved, lost brother to embark on a journey in search toward understanding, happiness, and redemption.
Haunted by the disappearance of his older brother Tommy in the first Gulf War, the tragic deaths of his parents, and the felony conviction that has branded him for a decade, Roy Joseph has labored in lonesome exile—and under the ever-watchful eyes of the law—moving between oil rigs off the coast of Louisiana and an Airstream trailer he shares with his dog.
Then, on the cusp of his thirtieth birthday, Roy is contacted by a teenage girl from California claiming to be his lost brother's biological daughter. Yearning for connection and the prospect of family, Roy embarks on a journey across America, visiting childhood haunts in the South to confront his troubled memories and history, and making a stop in Nevada to call on a retired Navy SEAL who may hold the answer to Tommy's fate. The ultimate destination is San Francisco, where a potential Russian bride and his long-lost niece await, and Roy may finally recover the Joseph line.
With The Other Joseph, Skip Horack delivers a powerful, spellbinding tale of a man nearly defeated by life who is given one last chance at redemption—one last shot to find meaning and alter the course of his solitary existence
Recently Viewed
Publishers Weekly
05/18/2015This exciting, well-plotted sophomore novel from Horack (The Eden Hunter) explores how war affects the lives of two close-knit brothers. The novel begins with a note from Tommy Joseph, who joined the Navy SEALs, ended up in the Gulf War, and was officially declared dead when he disappeared. Tommy introduces the reader to the memoir of his kid brother, Roy. Roy's globe-trotting trip begins when he receives an unexpected email from a woman named Joni, who claims the missing Tommy is her biological father, but Roy's attempts to reach her fail. Hoping to reconnect with his disappeared brother, Roy leaves Louisiana for San Francisco, where Joni lives with her standoffish poet mother, Nancy. However, Roy is a registered sex offender (he slept with a 16-year-old when he was 19), and can only travel out of his home state temporarily. En route, he visits Tommy's SEAL friend, the unforgettable Lionel Purcell (who's worthy of his own book), in Nevada. Lionel advises against the trip, and Roy's plans don't go as he hoped once he reaches San Francisco. Horack delivers satisfying plot turns and shows great empathy for his troubled protagonist, Roy, who only seeks to honor the memory of his big brother Tommy. (Mar.)
Lauren Groff
Utterly fearless… [Horack’s] books [are] composed of subtle emotional gradations from one line to the next, only to finish in a stunningly sophisticated whole. ...big, tough, and ravishing, a ghost story...an elegy with the ache and grace of deeply lived life in it.Adam Johnson
A brilliant, gripping novel written with uncommon skill, The Other Joseph is a poignant and unflinching… novel that is as concerned with the search for the answers as it is with matters of the heart and soul. The scope of Horack’s imagination, knowledge, and empathy is striking.David Vann
The Other Joseph is a clear and melancholy tale...about what we can make of ourselves from the remnants. Horack’s writing is clear and evocative, and his observations... linger long after the book is finished.Thomas McGuane
Intensely grounded in a world of oil rigs, American landscapes, and ocean, The Other Joseph is a compelling, suspenseful meditation on brotherly love and family longing in a disintegrating world.Booklist
Horack keeps the action moving and the characters believable.Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Skip Horack is a maestro of building slow-cooking suspense.LargeheartedBoy.com
Skip Horack’s novel The Other Joseph is a fascinating story of redemption where the landscape breathes through every page.The Rumpus.com
It’s a gorgeous book, brilliant and heartbreaking and funny, with characters so well drawn they were impossible to get out of my mind. I can’t remember the last time I read a contemporary novel that had such an instant feel of a classic.Kirkus Reviews
2015-02-05In Horack's (The Eden Hunter, 2010, etc.) latest, Roy Joseph learns that "grief never leaves, it just mutates."Roy and his beloved older brother, Thomas, had an idyllic rural Louisiana childhood. With loving, "almost hippie-type" schoolteacher parents, education was key. Instead, golden-boy Tom joined the Navy SEALs, only to disappear during the first Gulf War. Family stumbling through recovery, Roy entered LSU. Then a grief counselor knocked and "told of a slick bridge and a flipped car and a deep creek." At 19, Roy went home to settle his parents' affairs and slept with his 16-year-old neighbor. Her parents turned vengeful, and Roy became an on-parole registered sex offender. He retreated to the Gulf's offshore oil rigs, realizing he'd "come to prefer the comfort and security of seclusion over the uncertainty of the unknown." Then, after a distracting email, an electric winch cost Roy his little finger. The email was from a California teen, Joni, who claimed to be Tom's daughter, thus for lonely Roy, "a foundling left by gods to prove they exist." In a beat-up Chrysler LeBaron, Roy began a Kerouac-style journey of discovery. Introverted and cautious, guilt-plagued and aware of his frailties, Roy believed he was playing "a cosmic chess match" to reconnect to normality. Memorable characters live on every page—some major, like empathetic burnt-out former SEAL Purcell, alone in Nevada's Ruby Mountains, and Viktor, a Russian immigrant marriage broker; others minor, like a clerk with a "nose shriveled like a dried fig" or "a tough old bastard" wearily posting flyers seeking a missing, drug-addled grandson. Bracketed by stunning revelations, Horack's luminous tale offers perceptive insights about the elemental connections of family.