A literary verse novel with the commercial edge of a psychological thriller, Jacob Wrestling, by Kelly Davio, mingles the teenaged love story ofJuno with the gritty surrealism of David Lynch. Written for the young-adult audience in the tradition of Anne Carson’s The Autobiography of Red, Jacob Wrestling is the 175 page story of two homeless teens who live a tenuous existence between their reality and their imaginations.
Jacob is a bipolar, Pentecostal boy who abandons his medication in favor of spiritual healing. He and his girlfriend Mae, a runaway addict from an abusive home, live a ragged, secluded life in the tunnels beneath a city park in Southern California. When Mae becomes unexpectedly pregnant, she and Jacob must decide whether to emerge from their subterranean world and raise their baby, or to recede further into darkness and fear, bringing an innocent child along with them. Jacob Wrestling explores the isolated world of the troubled teen, the insidious wounds religious abuse can inflict and the dark fringes of every human life.
Edgy, dream-like, often frightening and always emotionally-charged, Jacob Wrestling offers teen and adult readers a story that is both dangerous and tender with an engaging, fast-paced plot and an ending that challenges basic, human assumptions.
Represented By:
Andrea Hurst Literary Management
688 Eggerman Road
Coupeville, WA 98239
916-549-5864 gordon@andreahurst.com
www.andreahurst.com
Sounds like an intriguing read. I hope it goes well.
It looks great – good luck with it.
Kelly,
It sounds like a very absorbing read. Amazingly, this may easily be someone’s real life story as so many young adults without resources often find themselves living in quite a different world than the one our eyes see.
Best of luck with your “baby”
Incidentally, I love the idea of a verse novel. I read one by Bernadine Evaristo (The Emperor’s New Babe) that I bought a few years ago because it was written in verse – but I haven’t come across many others.