Announcing My Debut Novel: The Big Empty

What did you do during the pandemic? I decided to use the extra time and isolation to plunge into fiction writing. The result is my debut novel, The Big Empty, which will be released by Stoney Creek Publishing next month.

It’s the story of a dying West Texas town on the cusp of the new millennium, struggling to preserve its culture and way of life as it desperately fights for its future. Like many rural communities, its residents worry about how much of their sense of place they must sacrifice to ensure the place will endure.

It’s got a touch of the Old West and a smattering of high tech, and it spans the state’s history from the grand cattle ranches of old to the modern world of semiconductors and wafer fabs.

Here’s a synopsis:

When Trace Malloy and Blaine Witherspoon collide on a desolate West Texas highway, their fender bender sets the tone for escalating clashes that will determine the future of the town of Conquistador. 

Malloy, a ranch manager and lifelong cowboy, knows that his occupation—and his community—are dying. He wants new-millennium opportunities for his son, even though he himself failed to summon the courage to leave familiar touchstones behind.

Witherspoon, an ambitious, Lexus-driving techie, offers a solution. He moves to Conquistador to build and run a state-of-the-art semiconductor plant that will bring prestige and high-paying technology jobs to revive the town—and advance his own career.

What neither man anticipates is the power the “Big Empty” will wield over their plans. The flat, endless expanse of dusty plain is as much a character in the conflict as are the locals struggling to subsist in this timeworn backwater and the high-tech transplants hell-bent on conquering it.

While Malloy grapples with the flaws of his ancestors and his growing ambivalence toward the chip plant, Witherspoon falls prey to construction snafus, corporate backstabbing, and financial fraud. As they each confront personal fears, they find themselves united in the search for their own version of purpose in a uniquely untamable Texas landscape.

The Big Empty is available for pre-order on Amazon, barnesandnoble.com and other online retailers or directly from our distributor, Texas A&M University Press.

For this and other books of mine, check out Stoney Creek Publishing.