It was just supposed to be a birthday party …
A modified fire truck. Just a group of friends celebrating. Then things take a dark detour. Pulsating dance rhythms reverberate over endless asphalt. As the temperature drops, the reality becomes clear: This driver isn’t stopping. After multiple attempts to contact the driver, the partiers suspect this party is never going to end.
Desperate, the trapped passengers devise a plan to stop the rolling nightmare. Continuing to drink, the arguments escalate as they peel back the layers revealing their past lives. Disturbing secrets bind them together. Grudges resurface, and battles erupt, the terrified passengers turning on one another as they try to survive the night.
Why we’re excited about this book:
When it comes to stories that push the boundaries of reality, David James Keaton delivers the goods every time. The author of Stealing Propeller Hats From the Dead, The Last Projector, Pig Iron, Head Cleaner, Zee Bee & Bee, and She Was Found in a Guitar Case, Keaton’s short-fiction has appeared in such publications as Trouble in the Heartland, Greasepaint & 45s, Big Pulp, The Booked Anthology, Tales From a Talking Board, and Lost Films, among others, and has edited anthologies such as Tales From the Crust (with Max Booth III), and Hard Sentences (with Joe Clifford). With his latest, Keaton gets behind the wheel of a party bus headed into a nightmare with no escape. Jon Bassoff (Beneath Cruel Waters) says: “Shallow Ends is written with such manic glee that I found myself reading as quickly as my eyes could dart from one line to the next. Keaton is a unique and exhilarating voice and here has expertly created a twisted narrative within the confines of a party bus careening down a terrifying highway.”, and Stephen Graham Jones (Don’t Fear the Reaper) says: “There’s A Moveable Feast, there’s Hot Tub Time Machine, there’s The Canterbury Tales, and there’s David James Keaton swimming between them all, pulling everything together into this raucous, unlikely, terrifying novel about a fire truck, a leap year, and life.”
Releasing from Podium Publishing 24 September 2024, Shallow Ends by David James Keaton is available for pre-order now.
BOB PASTORELLA