Larry O. Nichols Book Signing June 3, 2011

Greenville author Larry O. Nichols will be signing copies of his new book, A Hobo Odyssey (Warren Publishing, hardcover, $27.95), at Fiction Addiction on Friday, June 3rd, from 1-3 pm.

A Hobo Odyssey begins in 1935, in the peak years of America's Great Depression. Flash back to 20 years earlier, when the Wright family is being lured to southwest Missouri by claims of riches to be had from lucrative mining jobs. This is when Steve Wright, the ninth child of the family, is born, just as the United States joins the war effort in Europe. Spared by the war and by the pandemic Spanish Flu that is ravaging the world, the Wright family is still barely eking out a living, and when the mining venture fails to pan out, they return to York County, South Carolina.
It's here that Steve grows up, becoming a star baseball player and a state Golden Gloves boxer in his senior year of high school. Then a fight takes place between Steve and a former friend who cheats Steve out of some money, resulting in Steve's fists adminstering a terrible beating on his larger opponent and causing Steve to question whether he should continue fighting.
In the midst of the wide-spread poverty and Steve's personal issues--the possibility of losing his best girlfriend, dropping out of high school, losing his chance for a college scholarship, his quandary over the rights and wrongs of boxing--he and his friend Eddie Biggers decide to visit Steve's birthplace in Missouri. Their chosen mode of travel: hoboing on freight trains, where there is an adventure at every turn, the biggest of which is crossing paths with Slim, a schizophrenic serial killer who is murdering hobos on the very same route.

Those who cannot make the signing can reserve a personalized copy of A Hobo Odyssey by contacting Fiction Addiction in advance at 864-675-0540 or at [email protected].