Hollywood
Releasing February 2024
Connor Coyne
Anxious Ophelia steps off the elevated train in the big city, hoping to start a new life with her summer hookup, far from her dissolving family and all of the traumas of industrial Rockville. Over the course of the next few hours Ophelia will lose her roommate, her money, and eventually, her sense of sanity when she sees a mile-long shark out on the lake, unwitnessed by anyone else, but obviously there, because if it wasn't how did she get so soaked? Ophelia cannot go back to who she was before sighting the beast, and the friends and opportunities she discovers all proceed from what and how she acts on that first, fierce, drunken night. Author Connor Coyne has created a new American myth for readers who enjoy a bit of madness in their weird fiction.
Paperback, 104 pages
Cover and interior design by Inkspiral Design
"Like a dream that leaves you wanting more, Hollywood pulls you along an atmospheric journey of self-discovery and human connection. Evocative and moving." - Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, author of Where You Linger & Other Stories
"This book beautifully captures the complexity of hope through use of metaphor and enjoyable descriptive storytelling." - Independent Book Review
“A poignant portrait of young people making art and mischief, magic and memories, on Chicago’s North Side, the kind of mystical place where even a mile-long shark is not the strangest experience on tap. Hollywood is about found family, and about the brief, precious season in which it flourishes, and it made my heart ache.” - William Shunn, author of Inclination and The Accidental Terrorist