A Stairway to the Sea - Softcover

Newberry, Jeff

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1888146575 ISBN 13: 9781888146578

Publisher: Pulpwood Press, 2016

Synopsis

Sheriff's deputy Justin Everson loves his home town, St. Vincent, a tiny mill town on the Florida Gulf Coast. He patrols the same streets he grew up on, driving past a landscape that at once familiar and mysterious, simultaneously modern and primeval. Gripped in the wake of a national recession, the town is quickly becoming a place that Justin doesn't even recognize. 

But Everson is not well. Still mourning the death of his ex-wife and fighting insomnia, he lives in a fog, somewhere between reality and a dream. When former high school bully Donnie Ray Miles drowns after a night partying on the Apalachicola River, Everson suspects foul play. A good old boy who joined the Army in a fit of patriotism after 9/11, Miles came home from a truncated tour in Iraq, and no one seems to know why. Not the local gossips who say that Miles was drummed out for selling dope. Not his father, Big Don Miles. Not local troublemaker Jimmy Danley. And not the enigmatic Wayne Childress, a labor activist intent on unionizing the workers at a local fishery. 

Even Sheriff Mack Weston puts Everson off the case, telling him that it's open and shut. The county investigator threatens his job when he begins to ask questions. But Justin is seeing visions of the dead man and wondering why no one wants to answer his questions. After a run-in with a former high school crush, he devotes himself to finding out the truth about Donnie Ray Miles' time in the Army and about what happened on the river the night he died. The truth will change forever the way he sees his hometown, a place he thought he knew.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

What happened to Donnie Ray Miles?

Deputy Sheriff Justin Everson continues to ask this question, and everyone continues to ignore it. Blocked by his superiors, Everson falls into the crosshairs of a local anti-government group as he peels back the layers of truth and deception. What he discovers will change everything he thought he know about his hometown, St. Vincent, Florida, a fishing village on Florida's Gulf Coast. 

For fans of southern writers like James Lee Burke, Tom Franklin and Larry Brown, A Stairway to the Sea is Jeff Newberry's debut novel.

About the Author:

A Native of the Forgotten Coast, Jeff Newberry lives in South Georgia with his wife and two children. He is the author of Brackish (Aldrich Press) and A Visible Sign (Finishing Line Press). With fellow Gulf Coast native Brent House, he is the editor of The Gulf Stream:  Poems of the Gulf Coast (Snake Nation Press).

About this edition

• Publisher: Pulpwood Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1888146575
• ISBN 13: 9781888146578
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240