Saturday 28 November 2015, 2pm: Old Capitol Books welcomes Tim Jollymore, author of Observation Hill and Listener in the Snow.
About Listener in the Snow:
Native mojo and a windigo vision stir up a storm of adventure. The struggle between domestic commitment and deceit plays out through Tatty Langille, the Mi’kmaq storyteller.
His path to save his marriage is anything but typical—events explode in surreal settings, through winter storms, and during tavern brawls in rural Minnesota, weaving Native culture with odd Scandinavian characters.
Tatty believes his Mary goes north to midwife a cousin’s twins, but her sudden renewed contact with those far off stinks with suspicion. When family secrets, Ojibwe myth, and murder fuel surprises and twists in Tatty’s search, he is left only with questions.
Is Mary the wife he believed her to be? Did her wild rages point to a hidden past? Has Tatty lived a lie? Should he run? Can he out-distance his denial and his own buried past? After uncovering Mary’s identity, what will he do?
About Observation Hill:
Labor tension though the early 20th century in Duluth, Minnesota was high, fueled by influx of workers from egalitarian Scandinavia. The post World War II fight was settled in the workers’ favor. As the century moved on though conditions changed.
Class struggle in Observation Hill erupts inside police detective, Paul Tuomi, as he investigates the deaths of an heiress from the patrician East End and an underclass teen in the laboring West End. When police resources shift to the eastern end of town, leaving a cloud of suspicion on the young man’s passing, Paul is told to back off but, instead, doubles his effort to clear the youth’s name.
Out east, with pressure from the press and the powerful to arrest the black sheep of the heiress’s family, Paul is pushed to disregard eye-witness fact and bring to heel his West End sensibilities or face demotion on his job, the end of his marriage, and the loss of his long-time lover.
About Tim Jollymore:
Tim Jollymore grew up next to the swamps, forests, and Indian reservations of northern Minnesota, the setting of his first novel. He spent his working life as a tree planter, pulp peeler, local historian, traveling salesman, and corporate manager. After migrating to California, he pursued residential design, contracting, and the teaching of English. Jollymore earned his master’s degree in literature at the University of Minnesota. He has also studied architecture and education.
Since leaving teaching in 2011, he has devoted his time to fiction and drama, writing a five-act play, completing two novels and numerous short stories. He posts to his review blog frequently and has written a travel blog. His first novel, Listener in the Snow, will appear in June of 2014.
During summer, he camps across the western states to visit extended family in northern Minnesota. Otherwise, he writes in Oakland, California and shares free time with his sleepyhead, artist companion, Carol. He lives in northern California nearby his three grown children, one of whom writes. When he can, Jollymore yells and screams along with his Viking grandson.
Jollymore’s fiction explores struggles of identity in American society from the viewpoint of the under and working classes. Though these contests—sometimes mysterious and often fierce— play out in spare, natural settings and every day, domestic life, they are marked by unusual, compelling events.
Old Capitol Books 