Christmas in July by Alan Michael Parker
In light of her impending death, thirteen-year-old Beatrice Danzig has changed her name to Christmas. She’s at the center of Christmas in July, a novel in ten stories told by ten residents of suburban Saxon Hills: the bored wife of a senior softball slugger, a socialite with a glitter fixation, a beekeeping hermit, a young runaway who can’t outrun her past. The novel explores each of these people’s lives before and after meeting Christmas—as well as Mr. Ramirez’s mustache, The Wizard of Oz, cults and terrorists, Brown v. Board of Education, a band named Wagawagawaga, and the mystery of Aunt Nikki, Christmas’ guardian, who sleeps in a closet to keep her demons, real and imagined, at bay.
Through ten strong, distinct voices, North Carolina Book Award–winning author Alan Michael Parker charts the wreckage of a troubled teen in a small town, exposing the residents’ secrets and their all-too-human hearts.
Publication Date: January 9 2018
Paperback: 256 pages
ISBN: 978-1-945814-46-4
Also available as an eBook
In light of her impending death, thirteen-year-old Beatrice Danzig has changed her name to Christmas. She’s at the center of Christmas in July, a novel in ten stories told by ten residents of suburban Saxon Hills: the bored wife of a senior softball slugger, a socialite with a glitter fixation, a beekeeping hermit, a young runaway who can’t outrun her past. The novel explores each of these people’s lives before and after meeting Christmas—as well as Mr. Ramirez’s mustache, The Wizard of Oz, cults and terrorists, Brown v. Board of Education, a band named Wagawagawaga, and the mystery of Aunt Nikki, Christmas’ guardian, who sleeps in a closet to keep her demons, real and imagined, at bay.
Through ten strong, distinct voices, North Carolina Book Award–winning author Alan Michael Parker charts the wreckage of a troubled teen in a small town, exposing the residents’ secrets and their all-too-human hearts.
Publication Date: January 9 2018
Paperback: 256 pages
ISBN: 978-1-945814-46-4
Also available as an eBook
In light of her impending death, thirteen-year-old Beatrice Danzig has changed her name to Christmas. She’s at the center of Christmas in July, a novel in ten stories told by ten residents of suburban Saxon Hills: the bored wife of a senior softball slugger, a socialite with a glitter fixation, a beekeeping hermit, a young runaway who can’t outrun her past. The novel explores each of these people’s lives before and after meeting Christmas—as well as Mr. Ramirez’s mustache, The Wizard of Oz, cults and terrorists, Brown v. Board of Education, a band named Wagawagawaga, and the mystery of Aunt Nikki, Christmas’ guardian, who sleeps in a closet to keep her demons, real and imagined, at bay.
Through ten strong, distinct voices, North Carolina Book Award–winning author Alan Michael Parker charts the wreckage of a troubled teen in a small town, exposing the residents’ secrets and their all-too-human hearts.
Publication Date: January 9 2018
Paperback: 256 pages
ISBN: 978-1-945814-46-4
Also available as an eBook
PRAISE FOR CHRISTMAS IN JULY
“A thoroughly unsentimental novel...Parker is a master of tonal complexity.”
—Kirkus Reviews
"Parker’s narrative crackles and swirls, spinning in surprising directions, landing with a totally unexpected impact." —Lit Hub
“Parker’s background in poetry is on full display in this novel in stories that follows Christmas Danzig, a 13-year-old
girl with terminal cancer....Each tight and poignant story within is told from the perspective of one of the many misfit toys that Christmas meets along the way. All of these lovable goons and more make for a warm, fresh telling of a tragically familiar plight.”
—Booklist
“This book isn't a series of morality tales, where the specter of death in the guise of a thirteen-year-old girl brings people to righteousness. Instead, it brilliantly shows how messed up we all are, dying or not.”
—Shelf Awareness
“Christmas Danzig, a girl ‘in the middle of growing up,’ charms both resident and reader with her fractured past, her haunting present, and her inevitable future [...] Parker delivers a first-rate heartbreaker that glows with regret, wit, and, above all, compassion.”
—Jon Pineda, Let's No One Get Hurt
“‘In case of ghost, break glass.’ Beautifully touching, funny, and accurate.”
—Terese Svoboda, Anything That Burns You
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALAN MICHAEL PARKER is the author of twelve books, including The Committee on Town Happiness (Dzanc, 2014). The Douglas C. Houchens Professor of English at Davidson College and faculty in the University of Tampa MFA Program, he has received two selections for Best American Poetry, three Pushcart Prizes, the Fineline Prize, the 2013 and the 2014 Randall Jarrell Award, and the Lucille Medwick Award. He has been called “a general beacon of brilliance” by Time Out, New York.
