Dive Bartender

Flowers in the Desert

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Pub Date 01 Nov 2022 | Archive Date 24 Feb 2023

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Description

It's 1977 and Frank Ford is running from his life and for his life.

Following the suspicious suicide of his brother Ray and Frank's own role in the death of twin sisters clearly culpable in Ray's demise, he hits the road, leaving Minnesota for the promised land, California–with a dog-eared paperback copy of Kerouac's On the Road as his roadmap. True to its protagonist's journey, Frank makes a stop in Denver to look up an old friend–in his case high school buddy and former Arizona Amateur Tennis Champion, Larry Richards, now a divorce attorney allegedly raking in the cash, hand over fist.

Larry's seemingly successful life was anything but, and Frank gets caught up in Larry's fraying web of deals and deceit, leading him farther away from California and closer to the same muck he left behind in Minnesota.

Enter the captivating and gifted songwriter Evelyn Raines, lead singer of Evie and the Desert Flowers. The righteous Bill Cross, new roommate, fellow bartender at DJ's and former Arizona Gold Gloves light heavyweight champion. Clayton Cook and Bryce Parker–entitled, corrupt and twisted. Arturo Reynolds, Denver gangster. Javier Raines, Evie's faithful brother and manager. A cast of characters that seems to conspire to keep Frank from his Kerouac dream.

It's 1977 and Frank Ford is running from his life and for his life.

Following the suspicious suicide of his brother Ray and Frank's own role in the death of twin sisters clearly culpable in Ray's...


Advance Praise

"""Painting a gritty and visceral picture of life on the road, specifically the rugged west, author T.K. O'Neill crafts a haunted hero in his latest novel, Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert.

Frank is itching for a new chapter in Denver, but there aren't enough mountains in Colorado to keep old habits and bad luck from catching up. Navigating a seedy minefield of manipulation, desperation, desire, and even hope, this wandering rogue of a protagonist finds himself in strange company, compelled to stay just a bit longer in decadence and pleasure, and delaying his California dreams one day at a time.

Love, loss, brotherhood, and purpose clash in a timeless examination of freedom through a drug-addled lens. With a clever and original flourish for simple, unexpected descriptions, the prose hums along at an even clip, occasionally taking time to wax poetic, à la Kerouac, with the urgency in Frank's mind and movements reminiscent of Sal Paradise, if not Dean Moriarty.

Comparisons aside, this book is far from derivative; it is a refreshing homage to beatnik life, telling an accessible story with a familiar lesson - you can't go home again, and home is wherever you make it."" — Self-Publishing Review

I'm not bothered in the slightest by gritty novels (a bluntness in language, sex, violence, drugs), but they aren't novels I naturally gravitate toward. So I was both shocked and thrilled when I realized, only a few chapters into T.K. O'Neill's Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert, that Frank Ford's blunt grittiness wasn't just a literary choice. It was a clever and calculated decision regarding a character that turned out to be one of the most likable protagonists I have ever encountered in a novel before. Ever! For all Frank's flaws (which are many, and he'll tell you all about them, bluntly, in the book), I adored him! I couldn't get enough! I loved him so much I completely ignored his mysterious and questionable past as I was drawn ever deeper into a novel filled with rational but misguided decisions, unfortunate events, and increasingly twisted and intersecting story lines.

Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert was a naughty, but utterly delectable treat for me that I devoured from cover to cover. Normally I might be compelled to say it's not for the politically correct or easily offended. But that would have been before I'd read it, and enjoyed it so much, and came here to unrepentantly announce as much in this review. Yes, this book is blunt. There's language, sex, violence, and drugs, and I loved every second of it! The entire book is fantastic, filled with weaving mysteries, nagging doubts, and loads of suspense. Phenomenal on every level! My favorite was still Frank though, who wasn't a saint and wasn't a hero, but carried the book in flying colors by being a regular guy dealing with a dark past, self-doubts, and, perhaps to his surprise, a chivalrous streak that might just carry him into a new future and love. - Masa Radanic, The International Review of Books"

"""Painting a gritty and visceral picture of life on the road, specifically the rugged west, author T.K. O'Neill crafts a haunted hero in his latest novel, Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert.

Frank...


Available Editions

ISBN 9781736144626
PRICE $2.99 (USD)
PAGES 532

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Featured Reviews

This was a book with death, drugs, sex and life on the road. It isn't typically a book that I read but this was actually quite interesting and kept me interested. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would.
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