A History of Heartache
Apr 2026 · Melville House
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About this ebook
In this debut collection, celebrated journalist Patrick Strickland's vivid and character-driven stories are as true to life as his award-winning reportage.
In A History of Heartache, boys grow up fast in the blazing heat of North Texas, and men grow old before their time. A wayward son rides shotgun into a night he can't take back. A janitor at an abortion clinic can’t outrun a ghost—or a camera. Strickland writes with clear-eyed realism and unsparing craftsmanship about common people—fathers and sons; widowers and junkies—poised on the knife-edge of hope.
With taut sentences and a wicked sense of humor, these 14 stories chart the small mercies and big mistakes that make a life: the songs we inherit, the bottles we empty, the tools we fashion from whatever’s at hand. Gritty and tender in the same breath, this debut fiction collection asks what it costs to stay, what it takes to leave, and who we become when we do. Readers of Denis Johnson and Ron Rash will recognize the hard light, bruised humor, and sudden grace that burn through these pages.
In A History of Heartache, boys grow up fast in the blazing heat of North Texas, and men grow old before their time. A wayward son rides shotgun into a night he can't take back. A janitor at an abortion clinic can’t outrun a ghost—or a camera. Strickland writes with clear-eyed realism and unsparing craftsmanship about common people—fathers and sons; widowers and junkies—poised on the knife-edge of hope.
With taut sentences and a wicked sense of humor, these 14 stories chart the small mercies and big mistakes that make a life: the songs we inherit, the bottles we empty, the tools we fashion from whatever’s at hand. Gritty and tender in the same breath, this debut fiction collection asks what it costs to stay, what it takes to leave, and who we become when we do. Readers of Denis Johnson and Ron Rash will recognize the hard light, bruised humor, and sudden grace that burn through these pages.
In this debut collection, celebrated journalist Patrick Strickland's vivid and character-driven stories are as true to life as his award-winning reportage.
In A History of Heartache, boys grow up fast in the blazing heat of North Texas, and men grow old before their time. A wayward son rides sho...
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About the author
Patrick Strickland is an award-winning journalist and author from Texas who has reported from some fifteen countries across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, covering immigration, the rise of the far right, humanitarian catastrophes, armed conflict, and more. He was a 2024 de Groot Foundation Writer of Note. His reportage has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The Nation, The New Republic, Politico, The Guardian, Vice, In These Times, and elsewhere. Based in Athens, Greece, he is the managing editor of Inkstick Media. His previous books are Alerta! Alerta! Snapshots of Europe’s Anti-Fascist Struggle, The Marauders: Standing Up to Vigilantes in the American Borderlands, and You Can Kill Each Other After I Leave: Refugees, Fascism, and Bloodshed in Greece.
Patrick Strickland is an award-winning journalist and author from Texas who has reported from some fifteen countries across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, covering immigration, the rise of the far right, humanitarian catastrophes, armed conflict, and more. He was a 2024 de Groot Found...
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