Whistle Punk Falls - Hardcover

by Shaun Anthony McMichael (Author)

"A moving and beautiful story. A great achievement."

-Gregory Wolfe, publisher, editor at SLANT

"The resiliency of McMichael's characters, the webs of friendship they weave, and the family bonds they struggle to rebuild, provide the book's defiant promise of renewal."

-Harry Kirchner, editor at Counter Point Press

"McMichael delivers a haunting and fiercely empathetic debut about friendship, family, and the fragile ways we try to save each other."

-Thomas Kohnstamm, author of Supersonic

"Brilliant, lyrical, brutally authentic. The prose achieves poetic heights of poignancy. A remarkable achievement."

-Jim Thomsen, editor, book reviewer

During the spring of 2009 in the hard-knocks timber town of Aberdeen, Washington, seventeen-year-old wallflower Jeremy Sweet, his friends, and their families discover that befriending someone with mental illness is a labyrinthine journey. That friend is Malachi "Loud" McCrowley. Native American, homeless, and haunted by the mysterious logging death of his white father, Loud claims he communicates with the ghosts of Kurt Cobain and other tragically misunderstood misfits of Aberdeen.

Jeremy was drawn to Loud because of their similar tastes in punk music and progressive ideas. But Loud's claims about the ghosts have Jeremy on edge; he also has his opinions on Loud's relationship with intrepid tomboy-turned-heartthrob, Aurora Lee Loftner, Jeremy's unrequited love interest.

Along their quixotic and hormone-fueled effort to intervene in Loud's dizzying decline, Jeremy and Aurora form unexpected alliances with their parents and Loud's estranged Native mom (Makah Tribe), and together, they reframe what it means to love someone.