The Other Joseph: A Novel (Hardcover)
A masterful depiction of a life driven off the rails by tragedy and sin—a man now summoned by the legacy of a beloved, lost brother to embark on a journey in search toward understanding, happiness, and redemption.
Haunted by the disappearance of his older brother Tommy in the first Gulf War, the tragic deaths of his parents, and the felony conviction that has branded him for a decade, Roy Joseph has labored in lonesome exile—and under the ever-watchful eyes of the law—moving between oil rigs off the coast of Louisiana and an Airstream trailer he shares with his dog.
Then, on the cusp of his thirtieth birthday, Roy is contacted by a teenage girl from California claiming to be his lost brother's biological daughter. Yearning for connection and the prospect of family, Roy embarks on a journey across America, visiting childhood haunts in the South to confront his troubled memories and history, and making a stop in Nevada to call on a retired Navy SEAL who may hold the answer to Tommy's fate. The ultimate destination is San Francisco, where a potential Russian bride and his long-lost niece await, and Roy may finally recover the Joseph line.
With The Other Joseph, Skip Horack delivers a powerful, spellbinding tale of a man nearly defeated by life who is given one last chance at redemption—one last shot to find meaning and alter the course of his solitary existence
Skip Horack is a former Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, where he was also a Wallace Stegner Fellow. His story collection The Southern Cross won the Bread Loaf WritersConference Bakeless Fiction Prize, and his novel The Eden Hunter was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. A native of Louisiana, he is currently an assistant professor at Florida State University.
— Adam Johnson, author of Emporium, Parasites Like Us, and The Orphan Master's Son
“The Other Joseph is a clear and melancholy tale...about what we can make of ourselves from the remnants. Horack’s writing is clear and evocative, and his observations... linger long after the book is finished.”
— David Vann, author of Legend of a Suicide and Caribou Island
“Utterly fearless… [Horack’s] books [are] composed of subtle emotional gradations from one line to the next, only to finish in a stunningly sophisticated whole. ...big, tough, and ravishing, a ghost story...an elegy with the ache and grace of deeply lived life in it.”
— Lauren Groff, author of The Monsters of Templeton, Delicate Edible Birds, and Arcadia
“Intensely grounded in a world of oil rigs, American landscapes, and ocean, The Other Joseph is a compelling, suspenseful meditation on brotherly love and family longing in a disintegrating world.”
— Thomas McGuane, author of Driving on the Rim and Nothing but Blue Skies
“Memorable characters live on every page . . . Bracketed by stunning revelations, Horack’s luminous tale offers perceptive insights about the elemental connections of family.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Horack keeps the action moving and the characters believable.”
— Booklist
“Skip Horack is a maestro of building slow-cooking suspense.”
— Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Skip Horack’s novel The Other Joseph is a fascinating story of redemption where the landscape breathes through every page.”
— LargeheartedBoy.com
“It’s a gorgeous book, brilliant and heartbreaking and funny, with characters so well drawn they were impossible to get out of my mind. I can’t remember the last time I read a contemporary novel that had such an instant feel of a classic.”
— The Rumpus.com