LaToya Watkins
Author
Description
"Spanning decades, Perish tracks the choices Helen Jean--the matriarch of the Turner family--makes and the way those choices have rippled across generations, from her children to her grandchildren and beyond. Told in alternating chapters, Perish follows four members of the Turner family: Julie B., a woman who regrets her wasted youth; Alex, a police officer grappling with a dark past; Jan, a mother who yearns to go to school and leave Jerusalem, Texas,...
Author
Description
"LaToya Watkins presses at the bruises of guilt, love, and circumstance. Each story introduces us to a character irrevocably shaped by place and reaching toward something—hope, reconciliation, freedom. In 'Cutting Horse,' the appearance of a horse in a man’s suburban backyard places a former horse breeder in trouble with the police. In 'Holler, Child,' a mother is forced into an impossible position when her son gets in a kind of trouble she knows...
Description
"S. A. Cosby observes that writing short stories is 'a special skill that combines brevity with wit and cleverness and the hint of the existential malaise that imbues crime fiction with its gravitas.' The stories in this collection overflow with gravitas in the most unexpected ways: a cryptic note left on a windshield, a murder for hire meets a game of Mouse Trap, a swipe right on a dating app goes horribly wrong."