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All Books - - Items tagged as "Midwest"

Two Dollar Radio Books Too Loud To Ignore script

As a boutique press, Two Dollar Radio publishes bold works of literary merit, each book, individually and collectively, providing a sonic progression that we believe to be too loud to ignore.
Books are shown in 'newest to oldest' view, which you can change with the Sort option below.
For a preview of each book, click on the "Sneak Peek" tab on each book's page, or check out our Issuu page here to view them all: Two Dollar Radio on Issuu

    • Crapalachia New Classics Edition QUICK VIEW Crapalachia New Classics Edition a memoir by
      Scott McClanahan

      A Best Book of 2013
      "[McClanahan] aims to
      lasso the moon."
      New York Times Book Review

      An endearing and haunting coming-of-age story that announces McClanahan as a resounding talent.

      Crapalachia New Classics Edition

      a memoir by
      Scott McClanahan


      $ 8.99 $ 10.00
      View full product details →

      *One of the Best Books of 2013The Millions, Flavorwire, Dazed & Confused, The L Magazine, Time Out Chicago

      "McClanahan's prose is miasmic, dizzying, repetitive. A rushing river of words that reflects the chaos and humanity of the place from which he hails. [McClanahan] aims to lasso the moon... He is not a writer of half-measures. The man has purpose. This is his symphony, every note designed to resonate, to linger."
      Allison Glock, New York Times Book Review

       

      Synopsis

      Crapalachia is a portrait of Scott McClanahan’s formative years, coming of age in rural West Virginia, during a stretch of time where he was deeply influenced by his Grandma Ruby and Uncle Nathan, who suffered from cerebral palsy. 

      Peopled by colorful characters and their quirky stories, Crapalachia interweaves oral folklore and area history, providing an ambitious and powerful snapshot of overlooked Americana. 

      Beyond the artistry, there is an optimism, a genuine love for people and the past and memories. Even more, there is a grasp to bridge the disconnect between reader and writer, for McClanahan’s stories to bind us closer to one another.

    • Us Fools QUICK VIEW Us Fools a novel by
      Nora Lange

      September 2024!

      "Past and present seep and bleed in this assured, richly ruminative, darkly funny debut. With exacting lyricism, Nora Lange chronicles the tumult and chaotic love between two unforgettable sisters. Us Fools is a marvel of brutal wit and wild charm—a brilliant, sweeping  chronicle of a singular American family."
      —Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light


      A tragicomic, intimate American story of two precocious sisters coming of age during the Midwestern farm crisis of the 1980s.

      Us Fools

      a novel by
      Nora Lange


      $ 9.99 $ 10.99
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      With her debut novel, Nora Lange has crafted a rambunctious, ambitious, and heart-rending portrait of two idiosyncratic sisters, determined to persevere despite the worst that capitalism and their circumstances has to throw at them.

      A tragicomic, intimate American story of two precocious sisters coming of age during the Midwestern farm crisis of the 1980s.

    • Other Minds and Other Stories QUICK VIEW Other Minds and Other Stories a collection of stories by
      Bennett Sims

      November 2023!

      “[Sims is] kind of like if Alfred Hitchcock and Brian Evenson raised a baby with David Foster Wallace and Nicholson Baker. Sims should be a household name in horror.”
      —Carmen Maria Machado, LitHub


      From the award-winning author of A Questionable Shape and White Dialogues, a brilliant, anxious, and hilarious new collection.

      Other Minds and Other Stories

      a collection of stories by
      Bennett Sims


      $ 8.99 $ 9.99
      View full product details →

      From the award-winning author of A Questionable Shape and White Dialogues, a brilliant, anxious, and hilarious new collection.

      A man lends his phone to a stranger in the mall, setting off an uncanny series of Unknown calls that come to haunt his relationship with jealousy and dread. A well-meaning locavore tries to butcher his backyard chickens humanely, only to find himself absorbed into the absurd violence of the pecking order. A student applying for a philosophy fellowship struggles to project himself into the thoughts of his hypothetical judges, becoming increasingly possessed and overpowered by the problem of other minds. And in “The Postcard,” a private detective is hired to investigate a posthumous message that a widower has seemingly received from his dead wife, leading him into a foggy landscape of lost memories, shifting identities, and strange doublings.

      Cerebral and eerie, captivating and profound, these thirteen stories expertly guide us through the paranoia and obsession of everyday horrors, not least the horrors of overthinking what other people might be thinking. With all of Sims’s trademark virtuosity, innovation, and wit, Other Minds and Other Stories continues to expand the possibilities of contemporary fiction.

    • They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us QUICK VIEW They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us a collection of essays by
      Hanif Abdurraqib

      Hardcover: Nov 2022!

      A Best Book of 2017
      "Funny, painful, precise, desperate, and loving throughout. Not a day has sounded the same since I read him."
      —Greil Marcus, Village Voice


      In this collection of essays, Hanif Abdurraqib, acclaimed poet and cultural critic, grapples with a storm cloud of confounding emotions with prose that is immediate, personal, poetic, sometimes funny and always deeply touching.

      They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

      a collection of essays by
      Hanif Abdurraqib


      $ 8.99 $ 9.99
      View full product details →

      *Best Books of 2017 —NPR, BuzzfeedPaste MagazineEsquireChicago Tribune, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, CBC, Stereogum, National Post, Entropy, Heavy, Book Riot, Chicago Review of BooksThe Los Angeles ReviewMichigan Daily
      *American Booksellers Association (ABA) 'December 2017 Indie Next List Great Reads'
      *Midwest Indie Bestseller

      In an age of confusion, fear, and loss, Hanif Abdurraqib's is a voice that matters. Whether he's attending a Bruce Springsteen concert the day after visiting Michael Brown's grave, or discussing public displays of affection at a Carly Rae Jepsen show, he writes with a poignancy and magnetism that resonates profoundly. In the wake of the nightclub attacks in Paris, he recalls how he sought refuge as a teenager in music, at shows, and wonders whether the next generation of young Muslims will not be afforded that opportunity now. While discussing the everyday threat to the lives of black Americans, Abdurraqib recounts the first time he was ordered to the ground by police officers: for attempting to enter his own car. In essays that have been published by the New York Times, MTV, and Pitchfork, among others—along with original, previously unreleased essays—Abdurraqib uses music and culture as a lens through which to view our world, so that we might better understand ourselves, and in so doing proves himself a bellwether for our times.

    • Whiteout Conditions QUICK VIEW Whiteout Conditions a novel by
      Tariq Shah

      BuzzFeed 'Most Highly Anticipated Books Of 2020'

      "A dazzling narrative about loss, coping mechanisms, and vengeance." —Ruth Minah Buchwald, Electric Literature


      With a poet’s sensibility, Shah navigates the murky responsibilities of adulthood, grief, toxic masculinity, and the tragedy of revenge in this haunting Midwestern noir.

      Whiteout Conditions

      a novel by
      Tariq Shah


      $ 9.99 $ 10.99
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      BuzzFeed "Most Highly Anticipated Books Of 2020"

      Ant is back in Chicago for a funeral, and he typically enjoys funerals. Since most of his family has passed away, he finds himself strangely attracted to their endearing qualities: the hyperbolic language, the stoner altar boy, seeing friends in suits for the first time. That is, until the tragic death of Ray—Ant’s childhood friend, Vince’s teenage cousin. Ray was the younger third-wheel that Ant and Victor were stuck babysitting while in high school, and his sudden death makes national news.

      In the depths of a brutal Midwest winter, Ant rides with Vince through the falling snow to Ray’s funeral, an event that has been accruing a sense of consequence. With a poet’s sensibility, Shah navigates the murky responsibilities of adulthood, grief, toxic masculinity, and the tragedy of revenge in this haunting Midwestern noir.

    • Palaces QUICK VIEW Palaces a novel by
      Simon Jacobs

      Starred reviews: Publishers Weekly, Foreword Reviews
      "Palaces is robust, both current and clairvoyant, and answers the question of what happens when our deepest fantasies become reality.—Foreword Reviews, starred review

      While exercising precision and a cool detachment, Simon Jacobs has crafted a surreal and spellbinding first novel of horror and intrigue.

      Palaces

      a novel by
      Simon Jacobs


      $ 8.99 $ 9.99
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      John and Joey are a young couple immersed in their local midwestern punk scene, who after graduating college sever all ties and move to a perverse and nameless northeastern coastal city. They drift in and out of art museums, basement shows, and derelict squats seemingly unfazed as the city slowly slides into chaos around them.

      Late one night, forced out of their living space, John and Joey are driven to take shelter in a chain pharmacy before emerging to a city in full-scale riot. They find themselves the only passengers on a commuter train headed north, and exit at the final stop to discover the area entirely devoid of people. As John and Joey negotiate their future through bizarre, troubling manifestations of the landscape and a succession of abandoned mansions housing only scant clues to their owners' strange and sudden disappearance, they're also forced to confront the resurgent violence and buried memories of their shared past.

      With incisive precision and a cool detachment, Simon Jacobs has crafted a surreal and spellbinding first novel of horror and intrigue.

    • The Glacier QUICK VIEW The Glacier a novel by
      Jeff Wood

      "One of the most indelible and visionary movies you've ever seen." —Jon Raymond
      A brilliant and visceral cinematic novel about authenticity and the American condition.

      The Glacier

      a novel by
      Jeff Wood


      $ 8.99 $ 9.99
      View full product details →

      The Glacier is a spellbinding work in the spirit of Tarkovsky or Jodorowsky that reimagines the American frontier at the turn of the millennium, a time when suburban development was metastasizing and the Social was about to implode. Following a caterer at a convention center, a surveyor residing in a storage unit, and the masses lining up for an Event on the horizon, The Glacier is a poetic rendering of the pre-apocalypse and a requiem for the passing of one world into another.

    • Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky QUICK VIEW Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky a novel by
      David Connerley Nahm

      A Best Book of 2014
      "It's impossible to stop reading until you've gone through each beautiful line." —NPR

      A mysterious, lyric exploration of childhood, loss, and ghost stories.

      Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky

      a novel by
      David Connerley Nahm


      $ 8.99 $ 9.99
      View full product details →

      (ALL AUTHOR PROCEEDS, MATCHED BY TWO DOLLAR RADIO, WILL BE DONATED TO IRC).
      *One of the Best Books of 2014  —NPR, Flavorwire
      *A Top-10 Independently-Published Title Overlooked by the National Book Foundation  —Electric Literature

      Leah’s little brother, Jacob, disappeared when the pair were younger, a tragedy that haunts her still. When a grown man arrives at the non-profit Leah directs claiming to be Jacob, she is wrenched back to her childhood, an iridescent tableau of family joy and strife, swimming at the lake, sneaking candy, late-night fears and the stories told to quell them.

      Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky is a wrecking-ball of a novel that attempts to give meaning and poetry to everything that comprises small-town life in central Kentucky. Listen: they are the ghost stories that children tell one another, the litter that skirts the gulley, the lines at department stores. A gorgeous, haunting, prismatic jewel of a book.

    • Baby Geisha QUICK VIEW Baby Geisha a collection of stories by
      Trinie Dalton

      Los Angeles Magazine Critic's Pick
      "Half ingenious, and half-wily, winningly hard to pin down."
      Bookforum


      Eye-popping stories that showcase an assured and stylish talent.

      Baby Geisha

      a collection of stories by
      Trinie Dalton


      $ 8.99 $ 9.99
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    • Backlist Bangers QUICK VIEW Backlist Bangers

      Choose 12 select backlist titles for $100!


      For many backlist titles, after the initial enthusiasm and support, we're left with copies. Rather than sitting in boxes, we want the books out in the world, being discovered, shared, and enjoyed by readers! Rather than sitting in boxes in storage, we want the books out there in the world, being discovered, shared, and enjoyed by readers!

      Backlist Bangers


      $ 100.00 $ 192.00
      View full product details →