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Also by Michael Parker:

Hello Down There, September 2024
Trade Paperback / e-Book
Prairie Fever, May 2019
Hardcover / e-Book
The Watery Part of the World, May 2011
Hardcover
Don't Make Me Stop Now, February 2007
Trade Size
If You Want Me to Stay, September 2005
Hardcover

IF YOU WANT ME TO STAY
By: Michael Parker

Algonquin Books
September 2005
On Sale: September 14, 2005
Featuring: Tank; Joel
192 pages
ISBN: 1565124847
EAN: 9781565124844
Hardcover
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Fiction

In Michael Parker’s new novel, Joel Dunn Jr. tells the story of how he did everything he could to save his family after his mother left and his father’s tenuous hold on sanity unraveled. On a journey from the town of Trent, North Carolina, to the coast, Joel and his little brother Tank thread their way back to their mother, fueled by potato chips, Coke, and the soundtrack of the powerful soul music that their daddy taught them to love. Always keeping the faith that their mother is waiting for them, they move from one kindly stranger to another on their odyssey, Joel ever certain they are being guided to her door: “I was being passed from person to person,” he says, “on my way back into her wide open window.”

Caught between the endless idealism of childhood and the sobering tests of adulthood, Joel and Tank bravely negotiate their way through a landscape of love and beauty, abandonment and betrayal, to learn that the one sure thing is often right by your side.

Media Buzz

All Things Considered - August 8, 2006