Joey Goebel

"One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly--thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families. Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them. When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another. Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together"--

Vincent Spinetti is the archetypal tortured artist-a sensitive young writer who suffers from alienation, parental neglect, poverty, depression, alcoholism, illness, nervous breakdowns, and unrequited love. However, he is unaware that these torments are due to the secret manipulations of New Renaissance, an experimental organization that hopes to improve mindless main-stream culture by raising writers who emphasize artistic quality over commerce. New Renaissance hires ex-musician Harlan Eiffler to manipulate its most promising prodigy, Vincent. Wickedly antisocial and disgusted by what passes for entertainment in the twenty-first century, Harlan ensures that Vincent remains a true artist. He poses as Vincent's manager and nurtures his career, all the while continuing to torture him. Smart, funny, and poignant, Torture the Artist examines the timeless idea that true art can only result from suffering. About the author: Joey Goebel was born and raised in Henderson, Kentucky. He has a B.A. in English from Brescia University. He is the author of The Anomalies and former lead singer of the Mullets and Novembrists.

HE WAS NOTORIOUS AND DANGEROUS ... SHE WAS PRIMLY PROPER AND BEAUTIFUL ... With his six-shooter slung low on his hips and his bold, lazy smile, Slade Maverick looked as if he were riding to a showdown. Rachel Wilder couldn't believe the famous gunslinger had come to Wichita to care for three orphaned children. She didn't trust him for a minute! But she trembled every time he came near, dreamed of his kisses and knew, deep in her heart, that he was the one she would long for all the days of her life ...

The Anomalies is the story of five quirky nonconformists who come together to make rock music in their small Midwestern town primarily inhabited by tiny-minded, walking stereotypes. Twenty-four-year-old Luster, who lives in the ghetto with his crack-dealing brothers, wants the ultimate form of the American dream-rock stardom. Sex-crazed Opal lives for partying despite being eighty. Adorable eight-year-old Ember hates the world and wants to destroy it. Forty-something Iraqi Ray loves Americans even though he fought them in the Gulf War. Aurora deplores young people, although she is a pretty, Satan-worshipping teenager. And now these misfits have formed a band-a band so different, so utterly unpredictable that they might just be able to slip between a crack, rise above their small-town existence, tour the world, and in the process make us all reconsider our tired conventions. About the author: Twenty-two-year-old Adam Joseph (Joey) Goebel III was born and raised in Henderson, Kentucky. He has a BA in English from Brescia University and his short stories have appeared in two anthologies. He is the former lead singer of the punk band The Mullets (Higher Step Records). The Anomalies is his first novel.