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Sucktown, Alaska

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Sucktown, Alaska

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Overview

Freshman year, Eddie Ashford had it all. Friends, parties, Taco Bell. He enjoyed it, reveled in it even. And he flunked out. Now he wants to redeem himself. Has to. He takes a job in tiny Kusko, Alaska, and promises to stay a year. His intentions are pure, but soon he’s lonely, low on cash, and desperate to escape the tundra. In this rough, raw, harrowing, and hilarious story, Eddie’s life becomes a dogsled ride along a line between youth and experience, bravery and recklessness, right and wrong. It’s tough going, and Eddie is alone at the helm for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781630790554
Publisher:	Capstone
Publication date:	05/01/2017
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.40(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Craig Dirkes grew up in Minnesota with his parents and two older brothers. He spent his 20s attending college at St. Cloud State University, working at his family's business (a lollipop factory), and traveling the world, having set foot in 39 countries. He began his career as a journalist in rural Alaska, and now works as a public relations writer and professional wedding photographer. He lives in Minnesota with his wife and three young children. He enjoys bird hunting, eating deep-fried cheese curds, and watching Minnesota Vikings football.

Interviews

• Compelling fiction that combines an adventure story with gritty realism • Funny and voice-driven narration captures the mindset of eighteen-year-old trying to redeem himself after flunking out of freshman year • Set in a small town on the Alaskan tundra, a stark and challenging place that will interest readers with an adventurous side • Debut author is a journalist who spent time living in Alaska during his college years and early twenties

From the B&N Reads Blog

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10 of Our Most Anticipated Indie YAs of 2017

Young adult books from independent publishers are always among the most exciting, because they often come with so much more freedom to push boundaries and feature strong representation that others don’t. Smaller publishers provided some of my favorite books of 2016 (see: On the Edge of Gone, by Corinne Duyvis; The Abyss Surrounds Us, by Emily Skrutskie; Not […]

03/01/2017
Gr 9 Up—Eddie has screwed up. He partied too hard and failed his first semester of college in Anchorage, AK. To rectify his mistakes, he agrees to take a 12-month job as a reporter at the Delta-Patriot newspaper in the "unromantic shithole" of Kusko, AK, located in the remote Yukon Delta. He lives with his boss, Dalton, and also helps Dalton take care of his sled dogs. All the while, Eddie plans to hide his expulsion from his father and brother until he can reenroll. There's little to like about Kusko other than Dalton's sled dogs; Eddie's neighbor friend Finn, who sells weed; and his love interest, Taylor, an overachieving high school senior. Soon, Eddie is flying out to neighboring villages to do reporting and begins to sell weed as a way to make money to leave Kusko sooner than planned. Each deal gets progressively worse, and Eddie messes with the wrong person, who has friends on the police force. Eddie wisely resolves to quit selling, but when Finn loses his job, Eddie makes an impulsive choice that lands him in big trouble. Dirkes sets the scene for an interesting story full of crass, realistic teenage boy humor. Fans of Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian will be drawn to Dirkes's writing. The author effectively wraps up the narrative and its message about making good decisions. VERDICT A strong addition for collections in need of funny YA.—Adrienne L. Strock, Nashville Public Library

School Library Journal

2017-03-06
First in his family to go to college (and first to flunk out after one hard-partying semester in Anchorage), Eddie lands a job as a reporter in Kusko, Alaska, for a year—because what can go wrong in a remote town inaccessible by road? Eddie, 18 and white, grew up with Minnesota winters; in high school he wrote sports stories for the town paper, but Kusko (Alaskans will know it as Bethel) is colder and the work is nonstop. He's billeted with Dalton, his editor and boss (and also white), and tasked with feeding and cleaning up after the sled dogs. In return, Dalton teaches Eddie to mush and pays to fly in Eddie's beloved truck from Anchorage (there's nowhere to drive to). Eddie befriends easygoing Finn, a Yup'ik, pot-dealing neighbor, and pursues Taylor—she's Yup'ik, Italian, and Swedish—high school valedictorian, whose rebuffs prove more than embarrassing. Frustrated and bored, Eddie hatches a plan to raise money, quit early, and return to Anchorage: combine reporting duties with selling weed outside Kusko, but tall and blond—plus cocky, impulsive, and clueless about the drug trade—he's quickly detected by dealers whose territory he's poaching. (Set in 2010, the novel omits the state's complex legal history with marijuana, including legalization in 1998 for medical use.) If occasionally melodramatic, this coming-of-age debut is a sharply observed journey through seldom-explored territory. Raunchy, funny, fast-paced; for those looking to hook male teen readers, your work is done. (author interview) (Historical fiction. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews