Books
Season of Gene
“Hudgens has scored again. He's given readers an engaging, knowing glimpse of an odd, but no doubt real, world of arrested development. And he knows his baseball” — Booklist
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Somewhere between incarceration and sainthood stands Joe Rice, a man who relishes peace, painkillers, and his Friday-night baseball league. When his shady business partner Gene dies rounding the bases, Joe knows this isn’t going to be an ordinary season. Soon enough, a suburban ex-mobster, his entrepreneurial son, and a gun-toting minister have Tasered, maced and harassed Joe over the location of a three-million-dollar Babe Ruth baseball bat he doesn’t know anything about.
Joe just wants to save his car-detailing/ticker brokerage business from Gene’s mountain of debt, crime and craziness. (Winning a game of Madden NFGL against his ex-girlfriend’s twelve-year-old son would also be a relief.) But first, he must confront the ghosts of his past - namely, his murdered uncle and his mentally unstable mother. He must also deal with the present, navigating the space between the two women he cares about. And finally, he must face the future, every man’s least favorite obstacle.
Dallas Hudgens, the acclaimed author of Drive Like Hell, blends Guatemalan chicken, online pharmaceuticals, and unforgettable characters in a raucous but moving story of love and baseball. Season of Gene is a wild ride of a novel about a troubled man, the troubled women who love him and a legendary baseball bat that could either save their lives or get them killed.
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Drive Like Hell
“A rollicking tale of love, death, drag racing, drug dealing, alcoholism, country music, and hanging out. ...(Drive Like Hell) will touch a nerve with many readers who have experienced dysfunctional families and survived to remember.” — Library Journal
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Luke Fulmer belongs behind the wheel of a car. Taught to drive at the age of ten by his father, Luke can do more damage with a stick and a clutch than most men can do with a bottle of whiskey and a lousy mood. He counts down the days to his sixteenth birthday when he can finally get his license. Unfortunately, the first thing he does with it is “borrow” his neighbor’s car.
When Luke is pulled over and found in possession of an air pistol, a ski mask, a stolen TV, and a bag of pot, the unforgiving local magistrate takes scissors to his license and vows to lock him up if he ever stands in front of her again. As Luke’s mother explores bad relationships and the lure of vodka, Luke moves in with his older brother, Nick, an easygoing ex-con who wants to steer Luke onto the straight and narrow. In the gnarled, muggy summer that follows, Luke contends with a lovely kleptomaniac girlfriend, a duffel bag full of cocaine, and the realization that he must save his family from themselves even as he plots to beat a path out of town.
Dubbed the “Great American Redneck Novel” by Big Fish author Daniel Wallace, Drive Like Hell is a hilarious one-of-a-kind tale set in late ‘70s Georgia, complete with stock car racing, honky-tonk dancing, pro wrestling, drug dealing, and syndicated television. Dallas Hudgens brilliantly evokes Southern culture in this unforgettable debut that is raucous and wrenching, funny and wise.
