Faced with increasing loneliness and mortality, Patty Pemberton is torn between a past she honors, a present she assumes is stable, and a future she doesn’t know how to plan for. After a new friend disappears from her life, and as autumn deepens and the year’s end closes in, she journeys into her community and the places and histories binding them all—and haunting her—until she arrives at what is most important while hoping her friend returns. Rich with characters and locations, as well as personal and public chronicles, October is a moving and compassionate meditation on life, love, memory, and death.
Every day, I move between Saul and Ray. And although Ray has been gone for a while and I live alone, I am never alone because he and our images when we were together and Saul and his image have me. One photo greets me, like a face in a crowd, and the other image, more familiar over time, also comes and goes. Both photos have been with me at peaks, in valleys, and on the plains in between. I pass by them daily and nightly, month to month, but I should only have one.
October – William Auten
October will be available 21 September from Fire In Hand Media and retailers.