Hot Air

by Charlie Suisman

Overview

A sequel to the award-winning novel Arnold Falls, Hot Air features the characters of the small, upstate New York town during the summer following the events of book one. The "incredibly funny" (Kirkus) antics continue as Arnold Falls has several identity crises all at once. Our narrator, Jeebie, has a life-changing moment with a cow, there's trouble brewing at the hospital, and Arnold Falls may change its name to Emollimax, for a payout. This is a character comedy about life in a small, extremely quirky town, for fans of Armistead Maupin and P. G. Wodehouse.

Awards:

Grand Prize Winner, Mark Twain Award2021 Chanticleer International Book Awards
Gold Winner for Humor2020 Foreword Indies
Silver Medal, Fiction for Adults2021 Feathered Quill Book Awards
Silver Medal, Fiction for Adults2020 The Wishing Shelf Book Awards
Silver Medal for Fiction: Humor/Comedy2020 Readers' Favorite Book Awards
Second Place for Fiction2020 Royal Dragonfly Book Award
Bronze Medal for Regional Fiction2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards
2021 Earphones Award WinnerAudioFile
Best Indie Book Finalist2020 Shelf Unbound Writing Competition
Literary Fiction Finalist2020 American Fiction Awards
Humor Finalist2020 American Book Fest Best Book Awards
Humor/Comedy/Satire FinalistIAN Book of the Year Awards
Literary Fiction Semi-Finalist2020 Kindle Book Reviews Awards
B.R.A.G.Medallion Honoree

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780578993287
Publisher:	Charlie Suisman
Publication date:	10/26/2021
Series:	Arnold Falls , #2
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.61(d)

Editorial Reviews

12/06/2021

“Gadzooks, the last thing Arnold Falls needs is more characters,” Judge Lionel Harschly muses early in Hot Air, Suisman’s comic sequel to Arnold Falls. Again, a singular assortment of oddballs ricochet against one another within the town of Arnold Falls, the Hudson Valley town that’s now the home of an official “resident hermit” (“catnip for travel writers in need of a punchy hook”) and the shooting location of a television series about Arnold Falls’ oddballs. The latter development suggests the second half of the original comic novel, Don Quixote, in which Cervantes’s delusional hero encounters a world that has read all about him. Suisman, too, seizes every comic opportunity as he checks in on notables from the earlier book—and sets them on collision courses with newcomers and new troubles.

Suisman’s feel for small-town daftness of the Red Sox Nation variety (“Oh, they’re playing the Astros. Skip it. Astros cheat.”) impresses and pleases as the residents of Arnold Falls, from the Elks lodge to the weed emporium, deal with pushy actors, a rash of odd thefts, the possible extinction of the northern cricket frog, an FBI investigation, and a scheme to sell a corporation naming rights to the town. Suisman again weaves the comedy through extended dialogue scenes alive with quips, wit, misunderstandings, amusing local-isms, and an overall sense of irresistible momentum. Once his people get going, readers on Suisman’s wavelength will be loathe to shut them up.

For all the laughs, and its occasional reliance on stock types, Hot Air also has pain and truth as its characters reveal their resilience in the face of harsh reality: the opioid epidemic looms in one backstory, and a pediatric oncology ward figures into the plot. Meanwhile, the theft of a stature of the town’s “foundering” father presages a reckoning with its past. Readers might want to reckon with it, too, by starting with the first book in this laugh-out-loud series before catching Hot Air.

Takeaway: This comic sequel finds ample hilarity in the Hudson Valley’s oddest small town.

Great for fans of: Cathie Pelletier, Donald Harrington.

Production grades Cover: A- Design and typography: A Illustrations: N/A Editing: A- Marketing copy: A

BookLife Reviews