Overview

Don't worry about what Dennis Monk did when he was drinking. He's sober now, ready to rejoin the world of leases and paychecks, reciprocal friendships, and healthy romances--if only the world would agree to take him back. When his parents kick him out of their suburban home, mere months into his frangible sobriety, the twenty-six-year-old spends his first dry summer couch surfing through South Philadelphia, struggling to find a place for himself. Monk's haphazard pilgrimage leads him through a city in flux: growing, gentrifying, haunted by its history and its unrealized potential. Everyone he knew from college seems to be doing better than him--and most of them aren't even doing that well. His run-ins with former classmates, estranged drinking buddies, and prospective lovers challenge his version of events past and present, revealing that recovery is not the happy ending he'd expected, only a fraught next chapter. Like a sober, millennial Jesus' Son, Michael Deagler's debut novel is the poignant confession of a recovering addict adrift in the fragmenting landscape of America's middle class. Shot through with humor, hubris, and hard-earned insight, Early Sobrieties charts the limbos that exist between our better and worst selves, offering a portrait of a stifled generation collectively slouching towards grace.

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Michael Deagler's fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Harper's, McSweeneys' Quarterly Concern, Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City. Formerly a collegiate Academic All-American baseball player, bilingual sales rep (Spanish), Federal Reserve intern, and Levi's Denim Fit model, Alex Mortensen brings world experience to each of his roles. Twenty-plus years of athletics taught him discipline and a strong Midwest work ethic. He still enjoys football, baseball, baking, language (Spanish-fluent, French and German-novice), golf, and learning.

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