Michael Parker is the author of five novels and a Professor in the MFA Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
What would you do if you knew who killed a friend of yours, but you couldn’t come forward with the truth?
From the prize-winning author of Hello Down There and Towns Without Rivers comes a novel about brotherhood and betrayal, deceit and desire.
In the autumn of 1975, a small town struggles with the mysterious murder of a gay teenager found dead in his parents’ bed following a high-school keg party. As Thomas Edgecombe, the editor of the town’s newspaper, diligently reports on the crime, he begins to suspect that his two sons may be involved.
Daniel, a straight-A student and a friend of the victim, seems destined for a prestigious college scholarship and a better life, while his younger brother Pete numbs his adolescence in a haze of marijuana and derelict behavior.
The brothers have grown apart over the years, keeping secrets about life and love, girls and boys. Now, they will be forced to face hard truths about each other and their changing, dangerous world. Virginia Lovers is a powerful, fast-paced novel about all ages and for all ages. It is about the expectations placed on all of us by family, society, and ourselves.
“Parker demonstrates a rich and sensitive understanding of family. . . . Parker is such a beautiful prose writer.”
“Parker is a precise but never precious writer who can convey a world of emotions, particularly when dealing with the intricacies of family life.”
Michael Parker is the author of five novels—Hello Down There, Towns Without Rivers, Virginia Lovers, If You Want Me To Stay, The Watery Part of the World and two collections of stories, The Geographical Cure and Make Me Stop Now. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in various journals including Five Points, The Georgia Review, The Idaho Review, The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, Oxford American, Shenandoah, The Black Warrior Review, Trail Runner and Runner’s World. He has received fellowships in fiction from the North Carolina Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Hobson Award for Arts and Letters, and the North Carolina Award for Literature. His work has been anthologized in the Pushcart, New Stories from the South and O. Henry Prize Stories anthologies. A graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill and the University of Virginia, he is a Professor in the MFA Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
University of Virginia
University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill