The cover art and copy for Trubelo-developed Outside In is set. Advanced reader copies to be printed and sent in March. Publish date scheduled for August 13.
Following is an overview of the debut literary fiction novel for Trubelo founder Doug Cooper:
From Memorial Day until the student workers and tourists leave in the fall, recipe the island community of Put-In-Bay, Ohio, thrives on alcohol, drugs, sexual experimentation, and any other means of forgetting responsibilities. To Brad Shepherd—recently forced out of his job as a junior high math teacher after a student overdoses on his parent’s pain medication—it’s exactly the kind of place Brad’s looking for.
Allured by the comfort and acceptance of Haley, a forlorn, alcoholic bartender, Brad trades his academic responsibilities and sense of obligation for a bouncer’s flash- light and a pursuit of the endless summer. With his new roommate, and local drug dealer, Cinch Stevens, at his side, Brad becomes lost in a haze of excess and instant gratification filled with romantic conquests, late-night excursions to special island hideaways, and a growing drug habit. Not even the hope from a blossoming relation- ship with Astrid, a bold and radiant Norwegian waitress, nor the mentoring from a mysterious mandolin player named Caldwell, is enough to pull him out of his down- ward spiral. But as Labor Day approaches, the grim reality of his empty quest con- sumes him. With nowhere left to run or hide, Brad must accept that identity cannot be found or fabricated but emerges from within when one has the courage to let go.
A look at one man’s belated coming of age that’s equally funny, earnest, romantic, and lamenting, Doug Cooper’s debut novel explores the modern search for respon- sibility and identity, showing through the eyes of Brad Shepherd how sometimes we understand who we truly are by becoming the person we’re not.