A novel
For the first time in his life, he feels in control.
But there’s a memory he can’t outrun.
A literary coming-of-age novel
with elements of psychological suspense
The novel
It starts
with revenge.
A small North Dakota oil town.
The late 1990s.
When a man drives off with seventeen-year-old Jackson Werth’s little sister and she returns home unharmed, the police let the man go without charges. Convinced they’ve released her would-be kidnapper, Jackson recruits Bo Mathis, the toughest kid in school, to help beat him bloody. Afterward, Jackson waits for his familiar anxiety spiral—the prayers, the guilt, the fear.
Instead, for the first time in his life, he feels in control.
Soon after, Jackson and Bo turn an online sex-offender registry into a hit list. With each attack, the anxious band kid who has always felt weak starts disappearing. He becomes bold enough to make a move on his longtime crush Jessica, tough enough to challenge her boyfriend Zach on the football field, and reckless enough to taunt the detective who handled Krissy’s case when he starts asking about the attacks.
Then someone leaks their list.
By morning, copies are circulating through the halls at school, and “GET THEM ALL” is spray-painted across the side of the building. As other kids take up the cause, people who were never on the registry become targets, and the town begins turning on itself. Jackson and Bo try to step away—until someone who knows what they’ve done blackmails them back in.
Now Jackson has to stay one step ahead of the cops and his own spiraling paranoia while he tries to outrun a memory he’s spent years praying away—and face the possibility that his real target was never on his list.
A literary coming-of-age novel with elements of psychological suspense, grappling with internalized homophobia, religious shame, and the violent performance of masculinity.
- Genre
- Literary coming-of-age
- Length
- 54,000 words
- Manuscript
- Complete · Seeking representation