S.K. Kalsi's "The Stove-Junker" Now on Audible

The Stove-Junker

Little Feather Books, Inc. 

Released 4/21/2015

350 pages

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My dear friend and author, Surya K. Kalsi, has released the audio book version of his debut novel, The Stove-Junker. The book itself is beautifully written; it is dark, it is lovely, it is haunting. It is one of my favorites from the last several years and not just because I know him and am fortunate to call him my friend. The writing is incredibly strong; the story, completely engrossing.

Surya and I come from two different styles of writing. Where I am more firmly on the experimental/surrealist side of things, he comes from a more grounded school of maximalism. His literary heroes make up some of the greatest foundations of literature: William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, William Maxwell, so on. The authors that paint a detailed scene rather than throw color every which way upon it. So, too, does my friend paint a story in great detail.

So it's with some excitement that I get to share this audio book news as I know that his attention to detail with his prose is as good in the ear as it is on the eyes. I hope you take the time to check out his audio book sooner than later. If you enjoy great storytelling and top-notch writing, then you will surely enjoy The Stove-Junker.

Audible Link: check it out HERE.

Book Summary:

"Part elegy, part history, part existential ghost tale, The Stove-Junker is a harrowing, lyrical meditation on loss, heartbreak, and the power of memory. In this extraordinary debut novel, S.K. Kalsi has crafted a haunting tale of unvarnished self-examination, as experienced through the story's central character, Somerset Garden, the stove-junker.

In the winter of 2012, 79-year-old Somerset travels back to his ancestral home in idyllic Drums, Pennsylvania, to renovate his dilapidated house. Burdened by the loss of his beloved wife, the long-ago disappearance of his rebellious son, and angry at God and at himself, Somerset hopes to reach a final understanding of the meaning of his life. While a blizzard barrels down from the north, Somerset discovers an unnamed boy squatting on the property, a strange child who forces him to confront his past.

As he unearths objects in the house that had been lost or discarded in the debris, Somerset remembers his father's cruelty and the accident that cost him his brother's life; he revisits the itinerant wandering of his youth, tethered to a troubled mother; he mourns the loss of his wife and ponders the decades-long absence of his son - all of whom are caught in the grip of Luzerne County's ancient history of violence."

Surya and I

(San Francisco, 2010)

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