"Writing is a hard way to make a living but a good way to make a life." -Doris Betts
HiStory of Santa Monica by Michael J. Atwood
Released May 2010.
Press kit here. Order below or from the Publications & Store page.
Michael J. Atwood is a fiction writer and weekly opinion columnist for the North Attleborough Free Press. His work has appeared in a number of literary magazines and online journals.
About the Collection:
The collection is thematically linked by both the characters—who are struggling to realize their Hollywood dreams and the setting—Santa Monica, California. A seemingly peaceful seaside city, Santa Monica is also a purgatory where the characters must face failure and loss— as well as their demons and ghosts. Family and ritual are consistent motifs throughout the collection, as are the themes of escape, addiction, redemption, reparation, religion, and death. Whether it is a young couple looking to buy their first home or a man returning to his hometown for a funeral or a baptism, readers will find the everyday rituals in these stories identifiable in many ways.
Purchase link:
Short Story Excerpts from HiStory of Santa Monica Available on the Kindle [to be released periodically]:
"The Shebeen" : Purchase your copy here for only 99 cents.
"Ancient Hibernians": Purchase here.
Events : Michael J. Atwood
Reviews:
Ampersand Books
Girls with Insurance
..."One city can both be the hopes and dreams of some and the nightmares of others. "History of Santa Monica" is a collection of short stories from Michael J. Atwood, as he uses the Hollywood neighbor as a setting of those who want to become a star and those treating their battle wounds of those attempts. With a certain dedication to the town, "History of Santa Monica" proves to be an entertaining and enlightening read." -Midwest Book Review
HiStory of Santa Monica is also available from the following retailers:
Barnes & Noble
Amazon.com
Shakespeare & Co. - Paris, France
Books on the Square - Providence, RI
Brown University - Providence, RI
Baker Books - Dartmouth, MA
Brookline Booksmith - Boston, MA
Village Books - Pacific Palisades, CA
Boston College Bookstore - Boston, MA
Newbury Comics - MA
Annie's Book Stop - Plainville, MA
A Review of HiStory of Santa Monica , courtesy of Zach Fishel of Girls with Insurance
Michael J. Atwood spins a multifaceted tale in the HiStory of Santa Monica. It is a tale of loss, regret, and redemption interwoven through many voices in a Faulkneresque postmodernism. The stories could be read in any order and although they can stand independently, we have to ask if they are not altogether connected as well.
The setting for these tales falls on the main character and travels between Santa Monica and Boston, Massachusetts. The realism of life choices reigns supreme throughout, and more importantly, the idea that, once you make a choice and follow through, you can never get back to where you started. This is a key to the stories, and the key to taking the book outside of the pages and into the real world. HiStory of Santa Monica places us in another’s shoes, something not easily done, and we are given the chance to live with the characters for a short while.
Throughout the short story collection, we are taken into the depths of the human spirit. We are given reasons for the strange behavior of our neighbor, and the post-traumatic stress syndrome of living on the fly. Everyone who has ever graced the planet knows this feeling, the emptiness and the hope of insuring a few extra years after the dust settles. We see this from one character:
I’d read newspaper articles one time about major league baseball players in the old days. They used to buy hardware stores―back home―just in case their careers didn’t work out. It was an insurance policy of sorts, in that time following the Great Depression…They were grounded and fearful of God’s wrath; the idea of going to the big league was nice, but having a hardware store back home, well that was security.
HiStory of Santa Monica dives into the issues found in our society, from the lonely rich kid to the broken down dreamer, from the redeemed woman to the thirty-year-old finally growing up. These stories offer an insight to the human perspective so easily felt but often frustratingly kept silent. Atwood lets us know that we can’t just give up and move home, even if home has followed us from the cold east coast to the often colder Santa Monica shores.
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