Monthly Archives: April 2020

Greetings from the Dogpatch!

We bring to you a weird, wild segment from Dogpatcher Wes Pierce’s novel in progress. Amnesty, the co-protagonist, looks for clues to her missing brother’s whereabouts, while trying to elude the investigators who are after him. Of course, she thinks about her mother! Here’s an excerpt, and what we had to say about the scene.

Photo: “Sad Rabbit” by Susan Newcomb.

“Every January her friend Deidre threw a white elephant party, where the guests were expected to bring gifts that had been given to them, usually the previous Christmas, that nobody, including they themselves, would ever want. It was a contest of sorts, with a prize given to the person who brought the weirdest, most wildly inappropriate gift: the kind of gift that no one in her right mind ever could imagine receiving from a loved one. Deidre had thrown this same party for years, and Amnesty had won the prize almost every time. It was like her mother had a gift for giving the oddest, most unappealing presents. After winning two or three years in a row, people began to accuse her mother of buying these weird gifts on purpose. When Amnesty told them her mother didn’t even know about the white elephant party, they didn’t believe her. But it was true. If Momma ever found out, she would never forgive her.

She took out of the box an antique illustrated book on sexual positions, written in German, that her mother had given her on her first wedding anniversary. Momma said it might help ‘spice up’ her marriage. Neither she nor Dean understood any German, but the illustrations were explicit enough to render any text unnecessary.”

Continue reading →