Richard Wirick

Hadley is twenty-three, bright and curious, and caught in the sinking net of meth­amphetamine cookers—‘tweakers’—who run their business from the grim Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles. The more frantic her struggle to pull herself and her boyfriend, Jed, from out of that world, the more divided her life and loyalties become. One hand reaches down to rescue him, while the other stretches upward to a new life of writing, teaching, steering those just younger than herself out of the thicket that threatens to trap her. Her knowledge of the ancient basin’s terrain holds the key to keeping the tweakers going. Whether she will use it, and how, gives Had’s story its breathtaking speed and magnetism.

Wirick is a poet of the blasted landscape—both interior and exterior. There are passages in this quietly powerful, beautiful novel that are devastating.
~ Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

Richard Wirick is co-founder and editor of the journal Transformation. His work has appeared in Playboy, Quarterly West, LA Weekly and elsewhere. His earlier books include One Hundred Siberian Postcards, literary vignettes of his journey to Siberia to adopt a baby girl with his wife, and a book of interconnected stories, Kicking In. He practices law in Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and three children.