OFF Track

General Fiction

By Michael Hultquist

Publisher : Lilley Press

ABOUT Michael Hultquist

Michael Hultquist
I'm a screenwriter and author of mostly dark fiction, horror, and thrillers, though I throw in the occasional comedy to throw everyone off the trail. My script, VICTIM, has been produced by Pierce Williams Entertainment, and is making the festival route in search of a distributor. Check o More...

Description

Cover art by Stephan Blundell
Edited by Michelle Roberts, Deena Mauldin

Genre: Mainstream

ISBN: 978-0-9784906-3-8
Length: Novel
Format: eBook
Price: $4.99 (B)
Publication Date: November 15, 2008
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What kind of cowboy do you want to be?

At 12 years old, Gary Sanderson found himself in the oppressive juvenile detention facility for boys called “Radcliffe.” But at 16, he has a chance to start over in a new town with his foster parents, Don and Gail Morgan. He hopes to build a new and “normal” life, but the past catches up to him as the problems of a small town erupt all around him. These problems spin out of control when the girl he loves asks him one question: “Will you kill my father?” It is a character study of a boy, shaped by abuse and burdened with the death of his father, trying to survive in a world he hadn’t expected to find.

By Loretta Sylvestre of WordsWellWritten.com: "Off Track," by Michael Hultquist, is a startling, disturbing, deeply honest novel, and I want the world to know about it. 

It opens at the moment of critical choice in the unblessed life of twelve-year-old Gary Sanderson, the moment when – beaten, frightened, worn down, and powerless but for the cold metal in his hands – he shoots and kills his father.  He pulls the trigger too late to save his mother from the man's cruelty.  She dies hours later.  The action shifts quickly after that to the time four years later when Gary's world tilts from the holding pattern made possible by imposed structure, and the heavy iron pendulum of choice swings belatedly toward him, as unstoppable as the trains that thunder symbolically through Gary's days and nights.