Holler, Child: Stories (Hardcover)

Description

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An extraordinary and unforgettable short story collection about community, home, betrayal, and forgiveness—from a writer whose “spellbinding, buoyant”* storytelling will break your heart as it tends to the wounds.
*Texas Monthly

In Holler, Child’s eleven brilliant stories, LaToya Watkins presses at the bruises of guilt, love, and circumstance. Each story introduces us to a character irrevocably shaped by place and reaching toward something—hope, reconciliation, freedom. 
 
In “Cutting Horse,” the appearance of a horse in a man’s suburban backyard places a former horse breeder in trouble with the police. In “Holler, Child,” a mother is forced into an impossible position when her son gets in a kind of trouble she knows too well from the other side. And “Time After” shows us the unshakable bonds of family as a sister journeys to find her estranged brother—the one who saved her many times over.  
 
Throughout Holler, Child, we see love lost and gained, and grief turned to hope. Much like LaToya Watkins’s acclaimed debut novel, Perish, this collection peers deeply into lives of women and men experiencing intimate and magnificent reckonings—exploring how race, power, and inequality map on the individual, and demonstrating the mythic proportions of everyday life.

About the Author

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LaToya Watkins’s debut novel, Perish, was published to great acclaim in 2022. Her writing has appeared in A Public Space, The Sun, McSweeney’s, and the Kenyon Review, among other publications. She has received grants, scholarships, and fellowships from the Camargo Foundation, MacDowell, Yaddo, and elsewhere. She lives and teaches in a suburb of Dallas.

Praise For…

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One of The Millions’ Most Anticipated Titles of 2023

One of Bookish's "30 Summer Books to Have on Your Radar"

“Watkins (Perish) portrays West Texas characters faced with loss, disappointment, and betrayal in this stunning collection… Adding to the fierce characterizations, Watkins beautifully conveys a sense of place…These kinetic stories are no less powerful than Watkins’s marvelous debut novel.”—Publishers Weekly, *starred review*

“Eleven searingly alive stories about Black men and women from West Texas explore the ways remorse and resentment can coexist in secrecy…Granular yet transcendent storytelling.”—Kirkus, *starred review*

“These tales explore fractured relationships between mothers and sons, couples grappling with the aftermath of infidelity, and children rejected by their families because of their choice of partner…Recommend Watkins to fans of Brit Bennett, Angela Flournoy, and Lakeshia Carr.”—Booklist, *starred review*

"Every story, every character, every line of LaToya Watkins's Holler, Child is a revelation. But it's the devastating voices of her characters that linger most. I got lost, in a good way, in these pages, in the complex, intimate worlds Watkins conjures so beautifully.  Alluring, intense, and utterly original, this collection is a treasure!"—Deesha Philyaw, author of the National Book Award finalist The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

"With her debut book Perish, LaToya Watkins proved herself to be a masterful novelist right out of the gate.  Now, with Holler, Child, Watkins shows herself to be a master of the short story as well. Each of these gorgeous, note-perfect stories packs the full-bodied punch of a novel, but with an economy and compression that are nothing short of miraculous.  How does she do it?  I don't know, but what I do know is that I very much want her to keep doing it."—Ben Fountain, author of National Book Award-finalist Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

"Holler, Child is a triumph of storytelling. With compassion, urgency, and exhilarating craft, Watkins plunges headlong into the voices, hearts, and minds of these unforgettable characters. This collection is outstanding—fearless, timely, and beautifully layered."—Kimberly King Parsons, author of National Book Award-nominated Black Light

"Holler, Child forced me to stop everything I was doing and surrender to its stories—richly turbulent with faith, violence, sorrow, reckoning, and exquisite tenderness. LaToya Watkins weaves together character and place with a poetry that evokes Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. A heart-stopping collection."—Cristina García, author of Dreaming in Cuban and the forthcoming Vanishing Maps

“LaToya Watkins is a singular and fearless storyteller. She writes masterfully about moments of terrible, impossible choice, when everything that makes life worth living is on the line. These are intimate, richly textured portraits of West Texas life, full of longing and tenderness, inevitably tethered to betrayal and heartache. Every story in Holler, Child will confront you—heart, mind, and soul—and hold you, in its deep beauty. You won’t be the same after reading this extraordinary book!”—Jean Chen Ho, author of Fiona and Jane