Squirrels in the Wall―a novel told in stories by a collection of interspecies voices―presents a unique and darkly hilarious blend of human and animal perspectives in a single setting on a Wisconsin lake. The stories provide a kaleidoscope of heartbreak among both human and animal characters as they confront abuse and death. “They call me Herziger, but my real name is Woof,” one of the stories opens. “They call me a dachshund, but in reality, I am just a dog. I live with my mother among a pack of wild humans in a big house on a lake.” In the second story, “Squirrels in the Wall,” Herzie’s “human,” Barney Blatz, experiences a fire in that house when he is just four. The stories follow Barney from infancy to death, tracing the epic, ongoing conflict between him and Father―a bumbling tyrant guilty of shocking abuse but also capable of poignant redemption. On this rollicking journey, we meet a suicidal toad, a cat, two mice, a bee, Grandfather’s ghost, and a turtle who possesses Barney in a climactic tale of environmental activism gone awry. Other stories reflect the points of view of Barney’s mother, sister, and older brother; together, they construct a collage of spectacular family dysfunction―and of healing love.

Squirrels in the Wall: A Novel in Stories

Literature & Fiction

Hitz, Henry

United States

SparkPress

In 1977, a fireman named Dan White saved a woman and her babies from a fire in the Geneva Towers apartments in San Francisco. It is this scene which opens White Knight, the story of one witness to that fire, Barney Blatz, and his entanglement with the political and personal catastrophe which followed. With the November, 1978 Jonestown Massacre of 912 people and, three days later, White’s murder of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, the city and Barney unraveled. “There’s a bumper sticker that reads ‘Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once,’ but this November, it isn’t working.”

White Knight: or how one man came to believe that he was the one who caused the San Francisco City Hall killings and the Jonestown Massacre

Genre Fiction

Wordrunner Press

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Books by Hitz, Henry