West Virginia

When Jamie Paddock learns of his father's suicide, memories of his childhood in West Virginia come roaring back. One of the few people in his town to ever make it out, Jamie's living in New York City now, developing marketing videos for YouTube, struggling to write and partying a lot -- all while suppressing the accent that gives him away. Spurred by an artistic curiosity surrounding his silent and private father, Jamie goes home, staying with his disabled mother and sister in their trailer, conveniently located between two Walmarts. Always poorer than the local coal miners, Jamie's family relies on welfare, but it is the mystery of his father's suicide that will help define Jamie's identity and possibly decide whether he leaves West Virginia for good.

"A man seemingly trapped in the wreckage of NYC digs himself out of the digital avalanche and sprints back home screaming like a wolf. Joe Halstead's West Virginia is devastating and thrilling." -Bud Smith, author of F250 "In West Virginia, Joe Halstead tackles the rupture caused by inhabiting two very different spaces, while also bringing the malaise of the coal dust-choked hollers to life, painting a portrait that is both intriguing and unnerving." --Sam Slaughter, author of God in Neon "If Thomas Wolfe had sat down with J. D. Salinger and written a book, the result would have been something like Joe Halstead's incredible debut novel, West Virginia. Yet Halstead's immense scope and vision are all his own, bringing the reader from New York to the generic strip malls and run-down, poverty-stricken hollers of West Virginia, where the black-lunged coal miners are the lucky ones who get to eat at Applebee's restaurants on the weekends. It is a place of desperation, but one for which the author clearly holds a conflicted affinity. Told in a narrative voice that is unique and ultra-contemporary in its execution, West Virginia is a novel that will grip you by the throat and it will not let you go, even well after you're done reading it." --David Armand, author of The Pugilist's Wife

Joe Halstead currently lives in West Virginia with his wife and cat. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Five Quarterly, People Holding, Cheat River Review, Sundog Lit, The Stockholm Review, Sheepshead Review, and others. West Virginia is his first novel.