A Town with Half the Lights On: A Novel

For readers of J. Ryan Stradal and The Music of Bees comes an epistolary novel following a failed Brooklyn chef who lands in his wife's small Kansas town determined to find their way out of Kansas and back home...wherever that home may be.

All Sid Solvang wanted was to use his culinary ambition to reinvent his grandfather’s Brooklyn deli. What he didn't expect was for his pretentious plates to run him out of business, ruin the family name, and shut the iconic establishment down for good. That’s how Sid finds himself in Goodnight, Kansas, forced to uproot his family and relocate to his wife's hometown, where the only thing keeping the locals on a map is the corrupt tire factory and the iconic May Day Diner. 

Sid vows he'll never set foot in a kitchen again, but while searching for a way back to New York he and his wife decide to rescue the May Day in hopes it'll raise the funds needed to get back to their old lives. As Sid gains trust in the small Rust Belt town, the true story of Goodnight opens to him. A story of heart and tradition, of exploitation and greed, of a town on the brink of collapse with neighbors you would do anything to save. Soon enough, the Solvangs must navigate family secrets, town gossip, a wayward girl named Disco, and a host of rambunctious alpacas to find their way back home... wherever that home may be.

Told in diary entries, town paper clippings, emails, school notes, and more, A TOWN WITH HALF THE LIGHTS ON is an inventive book club novel that proves that the place we call home is the one we should always fight for.