Sweet Muffin Ranch - by Matthew Blasi (Paperback)

About the Book

The Temmens family are seen as gamblers and grifters. Most of all, they're known to be dirt poor trouble, and when Gene, the youngest son, returns from a vagabond trip around the country, that's exactly what he brings.

Book Synopsis

Gamblers, grifters, ne'er-do-wells, and dirt poor-to those who live on the outskirts of Columbia, South Carolina, such is the reputation of the Temmens family. Most of all, they're known to be trouble, and when Gene, the youngest son, returns from a vagabond trip around the country, that's exactly what he brings.

Hounded by Texas bookies, Gene and his destitute family have no choice but to gamble on one last ace: The Sweet Muffin Ranch, their family-owned and operated dog rescue and rehabilitation center that, to everyone's surprise, quickly becomes a runaway success, one that makes the Temmens the talk of the town and offers Gene the chance to leave behind his illicit past.

But when Hollis Lerne, a nefarious local loan shark arrives to collect on old gambling debts and one of the Texans goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Gene and his family are caught in the middle of a bloody, unorthodox war that threatens the lives of humans and canines alike.

Review Quotes

"Rooted in southern Gothic, crime fiction, and the grotesque, Sweet Muffin Ranch feels somehow cyberpunk, full of dreamers trying to spin out beautiful, strange, and incredibly fragile lives in the ruins of the American economy. Joyful and idiosyncratic, Matthew Blasi's debut is full of righteous dogs and crumbling men and women perpetually on the threshold of becoming. Of particular interest are the antagonist, the extravagant crisis of masculinity that is Hollis Lerne; Rich Temmens, the protagonist's brother haunted by accidental war crimes; and the matriarch of the family, Mattie. Blasi loves these characters, unfolds them like heroes and heroines from epic, shows them at their most compelling, lets them sink into grandiose self-pity and emerge all the stranger--and it's a delight." --Maya Deane, author of Wrath Goddess Sing

"Matthew Blasi's debut novel Sweet Muffin Ranch is a homecoming, a return to loan sharks, bottles of peach hooch, dog whisperers, space pills-& ghosts. But as we tragically learn from the story, one can never really go home, nor escape it. Gripped from the opening pages, I simply could not put the book aside. Witty & darkly funny, Sweet Muffin Ranch is a masterstroke, a remarkable work of fiction." - Malik Abduh, author of All the Stars Aflame