The Galaxie and Other Rides

Josie Sigler

     Winner of the Sixth Annual Tartts First Fiction Award.  Set primarily in post-industrial Detroit, The Galaxie and Other Rides explores the fight for survival in the heartland: a young Marine is attacked by men from his own unit, the daughter of a prostitute struggles to find her sexual identity, and a man plots his own death—half suicide, half protest—by fire when he loses his job at General Motors. A classic car appears in each story, a reminder of the decline of the automobile industry upon which many of the characters have built their lives. While few choices remain in the wake of their losses, they maintain a porchlight-left-on love for each other that defies the odds. Indeed, love is their salvation amid the ruins.

ISBN: 978-1-60489-097-6 Library Binding, $32.00      Sale $16.00

ISBN: 978-1-60489-098-3 Trade Paper, $19.95           Sale $10.00

192 pages

Josie Sigler was born Downriver Detroit, and grew up in the Midwest. Her work has appeared in journals such as Water~Stone, Hunger Mountain, Silk Road, and Roanoke Review. Her chapbook, Calamity, was published by Proem Press. Her book of poems, living must bury, winner of the 2010 Motherwell Prize, was published by Fence Books. She recently completed a Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Residency, which affords a writer the opportunity to live on a remote homestead on the Rogue River in southern Oregon. She currently lives at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, where she is working on a novel.

       Richie was the only one who had enough credits to graduate because he took all the retard classes. The rest of us failed English again. So the day of the ceremony, everybody else in their caps and gowns, Little Ho boosts Mrs. Hendrick’s piece-of-shit ’77 Caprice out of the school parking lot and drives us all up to Caseville Beach.
       Actually it’s my idea, me who says, “Let’s steal her goddamned car.”
       We’re sitting on Rochelle’s front porch loading up for the day. The beer nestled in my nuts is already warm though it’s only ten in the morning.
       “Yeah, you guys need another car for sure,” Rochelle says, rolling her eyes at her mother’s driveway, where our rustbuckets are lined up like it’s a fricking parade. Rochelle’s the only girl we hang with, and she tries to keep us in line, too.
       But Little Ho gets what I mean right away. He sees it’s the principle of the thing.
       Rochelle says, “Don’t be stupid, Ho,” though she knows it’s a lost cause. She started sitting against the fence on the playground with The Ho right around the time his mom died. That was sixth grade. Not a one of us can see how a faggot like The Ho landed a girl like her, but this is the shit that happens. And of course she won’t come with us up to Caseville.