Fells Point

What begins as a personal journey of late-life reckoning becomes a noir-tinged meditation on memory, mortality, and the search for purpose. By turns darkly funny and melancholic, Fells Point captures a soul—and a city—at a crossroads.

Daniel Doyle Jr., a jaded, middle-aged corporate communications flack in Baltimore, is drifting through life under a literal death sentence: a congenital heart defect that could take him any day. Determined to reclaim some meaning, he sets out to truly see and understand his city for the first time, creating a “bucket list” of cultural landmarks, lost institutions, and personal haunts across Baltimore. But as he traverses the city’s past and present, he realizes he’s being followed by a mysterious stranger who seems to appear wherever he goes. Is it paranoia, coincidence, or something more sinister?

William Loving is the author of three novels, including City of Angles, Blue Earth River, and his latest, Fells Point. Before turning to fiction, he worked as a journalist at the Los Angeles Times and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, covering city life, politics, and culture. His fiction reflects a journalist’s sharp eye for character and place, blending wit, suspense, and a deep connection to the cities that have shaped him. He lives in Pasadena, California, with his wife.