'Houses,' New Novel By Cynthia Rogers Parks Released November 12

Kennesaw, GA (PRWEB) November 20, 2009

Told in the first-person style of a memoir, or confessional, addressed to Lacey’s presumed progeny—her “chickadees,” the new novel 'Houses' begins after WWII, when her veteran father produces not only a new mother for Lacey and her sister, but a brand new GI-Bill ranch house. For children who’ve never had playmates and known only dark old city apartments, the postwar suburbs of the 50s will seem a dream come true, providing them with safety, freedom, and enduring friendships. But the new mother is not exactly Donna Reed and father doesn’t always know best.

The myth of a unified country and the 50s façade of the happy nuclear family are exploded in the turbulent 60s just as a lie shatters the Winters family and an unplanned pregnancy sends Lacey away from home to begin building her own version of the great American dream.

The unplanned pregnancy, the slip of the tongue that sends Lacey’s sister to join the decade’s massive wave of runaways, and the first job that culminates in the accidental career of real estate agent propel the narrative stream and the idea that accidental, seemingly trivial choices can have long-term consequences reoccurs as a theme throughout the novel: Sometimes you own houses, sometimes they own you. Be careful, chickadees, about choosing your first job.

Readers will be interested in the first-person accounts of the civil rights struggles and the political assassinations of King and Kennedy in the 60s. The parallels between the Vietnam and Iraq wars are unmistakable and the descriptions of the economic downturn and housing crash of the 70s read like today’s news. In many ways this novel is a cautionary tale about the way history, and the people who make it, repeat their past mistakes. But it is also a deep exploration of the meaning of home and its relationship to every American’s dream.

A debut novelist, but a seasoned writer, Parks has written a deceptively subtle novel that also confronts many of the gender struggles of the past five decades and reveals them as still unresolved. 'Houses' will primarily be of interest to women but, as one male reviewer noted, “you don’t have to turn your man card in” to enjoy this author’s fresh, honest, and often very funny voice.    

About the Author:
Cynthia Rogers Parks received a Ph.D., from the creative writing program at Georgia State University where she taught literature, composition, and business writing for fourteen years. Her short stories have been published in a variety of university and regional literary magazines and she has been a Redbook magazine fiction finalist. Recently 'Houses' won the A Woman’s Write Good Read fiction competition.            

Parks currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia where she is completing work on The Nesting Dolls, a historical saga that follows four generations of mothers who lose their daughters to war, death, and social upheaval. Publication of The Nesting Dolls is anticipated in late 2010.

For more information or to contact the author, visit her website at http://housesthenovel.com

Fiction: 362 Pages
ISBN: 978-0-615-32893-5
13.95
Available Now

Retailers contact:
Sales (at) Leighwalkerbooks (dot) net

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