Derek Updegraff Reading & Signing

Join us at Hub City Bookshop on Thursday, September 5th at 6 PM for an event with Derek Updegraff. Updegraff will be presenting his latest novel Whole, an insightful novel touching on themes of solitude, companionship, and personal fulfillment. 

We would love to know you are coming! Please consider RSVP-ing to our event and get a 10% discount when you purchase your book(s) through Eventbrite. 

RSVP

About the Book: 

On the first day of spring in the Inland Empire of Southern California, our narrator Joe inadvertently rams his car into Ronnie, a homeless man riding a bicycle. The bike is crushed, aluminum cans are scattered, but a new relationship is formed. Joe encounters Ronnie and his dog Henry at the local dog park, at their campsite by the Santa Ana River, and in other, unexpected locations.

Seemingly content working in a café and leading an aimless life, Joe is twenty-eight and has started writing prose poems and short stories. He walks the streets at night, rides buses to nowhere in particular, swims in the ocean on a whim-sometimes naked, sometimes fully clothed. He is dating Ashley, a transplant from the Midwest who shares his birthday and birthyear and is a poetry professor at a small Christian college. Joe talks to himself, he talks to God, he talks to the dog he acquires. He is in love with Ashley yet longs for his ex, Cora, too.

Reminiscent of John Fante's Ask the Dust, Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away, and Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, this novel explores themes of solitude, companionship, and personal fulfillment. As the oppressive heat of summer creeps closer to the Inland Empire, Joe acts with a surprising ferocity that will leave him and those around him forever changed.

About the Author: 

Derek Updegraff is the author of the novel Whole, as well as two short fiction collections and three poetry collections. His short stories, poems, translations, and essays have appeared in dozens of literary journals. Originally from San Diego, he earned an MFA in creative writing from Cal State Long Beach and a PhD in English from the University of Missouri. He is an Associate Professor of English at Anderson University, where he directs the undergraduate creative writing program.