Red Giant Books - Independent Publisher of literary fiction, non-fiction and poetry

In Westward, Rick Ridgway tells the story of Joe, a boy growing up amid poverty, family turmoil, loneliness, and the unforgiving industrial landscape of postwar Cleveland. Caught between a troubled grandmother, an elusive mother, and a father drifting from one failed scheme to another, Joe struggles to understand love, anger, faith, and his own place in a world that often feels hostile. Raw, darkly funny, and intensely observant, Westward is a coming-of-age novel about abandonment and resilience—and about a restless boy searching for a way beyond the boundaries of the life he has been given. As the people he loves move farther away, Joe begins to look westward, toward the possibility of escape, freedom, and becoming someone other than the product of his circumstances.

A darkly comic and quietly unsettling collection of short stories about the strange ways people navigate friendship, family, memory, loneliness, and the stories they tell themselves. With an eye for the absurd and an ear for authentic conversation, these stories move easily between humor and unease, often revealing something deeper just when the reader thinks the joke is over. The characters are recognizable but unpredictable, caught in ordinary moments that gradually become something more complicated. In this collection, laughter and discomfort often share the same seat at the bar. The story included here offers a representative glimpse of that territory: funny, conversational, and ultimately questioning how well any of us can really know another person—or ourselves.

Octopus Hunting, a mind-bending collection of new essays by Richey A. Piiparinen with illustrations by Liz Maugans. Piiparinen has crafted fourteen essays that traverse the economy of the Rust Belt and Cleveland, Ohio, from its past triumphs to its current struggles, explaining the issues confronting the region with laser wit and mounds of research. The book is also a memoir of Piiparinen’s diagnosis of glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive brain cancer known as “the terminator,” and his subsequent treatment. The two seemingly disparate themes are so expertly knitted together that his personal experiences deepen the economic discussion, and we never forget that when we talk about the rise and fall and rise again of cities and regions, we are really talking about the people who live in them. Piiparinen has crafted a love song to the city where he was born, raised, and became an influential voice in the debate about the city’s future. Octopus Hunting represents his best thinking and hard-fought conclusions concerning a post-industrial economy and the traps that await a region that does not consider equity in the drive for progress. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to know how a once-dominant industrial region has…

Pursued by a deranged stalker, haunted by the serial killer from her past, KTLA weather girl Daisy Diaz signs up for a Valley screenwriting course to tackle her trauma on the page. But when her classmates turn up dead, Daisy falls for the divorced cop assigned to protect her from a B-list of suspects: the lunatic professor, his infamous class speakers, her violent ex- fiancé, the cable guy… until Daisy embraces her inner Final Girl to battle the apex predator in a town where dying is a good career move. “Novak bites, chews, and spits out the hand that feeds him. The ghost of F. Scott Fitzgerald nods in approval.”—Lem Dobbs, writer of The Limey “Adam Novak has a merciless eye for a society in which striving replaces every consideration of morality.”Michael Tolkin, author of The Player “The craziest goddamn thing I’ve read in a long time.” Alexander Payne, writer-director of Sideways “A slit-wrist wit that invokes the best of Bruce Wagner with a sweetness in the dark corners that calls to mind the late,lamented John O’Brien, but Novak’s voice is all his own.”Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight “Alive with talent!”R.M. Koster, author of The Dissertation “A dark, unforgettable…