The Hollow Middle by John Popielaski ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

The Hollow Middle follows Albert Lesiak, an aging English teacher in Connecticut, who receives a windfall in delayed acknowledgment of the government’s complicity in his father’s cancer death and decides that it is time to live a different life on land he owns in Maine.

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December 2018; Unsolicited Press
978-1947021402; ebook, print (381 pages)
literary fiction

When his wife Mary suggests that they could foster or adopt autistic twin boys she fell in love with on a website and could use the stipend money in furtherance of Albert’s vision, Albert gradually perceives himself as possibly adapting to the role of patriarch.

A meditation on the curiosity of making sense and the dilemma of becoming true, The Hollow Middle ambles, mostly, and goes still for periods of various duration, acting like it’s not beholden after all to the rhetorical.

The Hollow Middle was not a good choice for me but I know that there are readers who will appreciate Albert's meanderings.  This is not a book to be read fast but rather a slow look at Albert's life and the choices he makes.

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About the author:

John Popielaski was born in Port Jefferson Station, New York, one year after the Summer of Love, John Popielaski attended SUNY-Stony Brook and American University. He has worked as a mover, lackey to a well-heeled tropical biologist, tent erector, lobsterman, and teacher. He has climbed modest mountains. The Hollow Middle is his first novel.

Connect with the author: website and Facebook

Susan Roberts lives in North Carolina when she isn't traveling. She and her husband enjoy traveling, gardening and spending time with their family and friends. She reads almost anything (and the piles of books in her house prove that) but her favorite genres are Southern fiction, women's fiction, and thrillers. Susan is a top 1% Goodreads Reviewer. You can connect with Susan on Facebook, Goodreads, or Twitter. 

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