Novels
Gather here with us before the flickering screen, the grainy flash-frames whizzing by in the mind of [REDACTED], a protagonist and narrator as reliable as they come. He has to be reliable-not only is he a journalist, but this time it’s his own story he’s telling, for once, instead of someone else’s.
Make that former journalist. Now that our humble narrator has been downsized from his career perch at the biggest birdcage liner in town-and far too young for retirement-he is frozen in his tracks. To where will his words turn now?
Where else but the past, which as Faulkner said isn’t even past, especially for a man whose youthful dreams still reside right around the corner from the newspaper office in the university media arts classrooms where he learned narrative filmmaking, not reporting the news?
If only he could consult with his old college friend Kunk, long dead of suicide, his old mentor might have insight. Or perhaps Camille, a forever-friend for whom the protagonist still pines after thirty years, a different breed of pain.
Alas, [REDACTED] must rely only upon his own memories as he reconstructs the truth about Kunk, Camille for whom our melancholy narrator remains unrequited, and most of all himself, their time together in the mid-1980s growing so hazy that his college days have begun to seem, almost, like some sort of long-ago, twice-told fable….
Please note that RECONSTRUCTION OF THE FABLES represents the final novel in the Edgewater County series, but perhaps not the last book from its author. Stay tuned!
Released in December 2021
Oh, happy day! It’s awesome here in the doldrums of the post-9/11, pre-smart phone naughty-aughties in crappy Edgewater County, South Carolina! Recoil in horrified bemusement as a trio of aging Gen-X malcontents—Devin Rucker, his sister Creedence and their rich friend Billy Steeple—all descend further into fiery dissolution courtesy a crucible of unresolved guilt, neuroses and deception:
Movie-obsessed Billy’s written the screenplay of his dreams all the way to the ceiling, has a faithful girlfriend, lives well, and, Oh, for kicks also harbors a deadly secret. He’s no Ted Bundy, however—all the murders were imaginary. Or were they…?
Creedence, hoping for rescue, grapples with a conundrum: someone’s knocked her up, either her doofus husband or else her doofus lover. Solution? Seduce rich Billy, with whom she missed her chance years ago… and tell him the baby’s his! What’s the harm in a little fib about paternity to make her dream of escape come true? No prob!
And then tragic Devin: an end-stage alcoholic grappling with confabulated memories of a dark past involving his lost love Libby Meade, their beloved cat or possibly both, he’s also still pissed over Billy’s betrayal, in the worst way a best friend could. One of these days ‘Ruck’ will return wielding biblical-scale retribution. Sure. But only after he has his fill; only after he drinks one more for the road.
Reader be warned: enter ye the MANSION OF HIGH GHOSTS praying these Edgewater County folk at last grow out of their stunted adolescent selves. For now it’s enough to say, let’s hope it isn’t too late; here’s hoping no one else ends up dead like Libby.
Released in May 2021
Millionaire ‘fruitshake’ cuckold Roy Earl Pettus, a prodigal son with a chip on his shoulder, returns to Edgewater County to attend to dying relatives, a failing marriage, and the sudden inheritance of a reviled family business, The Dixiana, a semi-famous honkytonk in which old resentments still simmer. Roy’s rootless, painful Gen X existential crisis is leavened only by the wise counsel of his hippy-dippy cousin Button Sykes and her New Age view of life here in what she would call meatspace.
Three Neo-Southern gothic, tragically comedic soap operas bring together eight major characters, as well as dozens of threads of Edgewater County lore, in an emotional, hilarious, horrifying journey of the human heart and spirit. If you have ever loved and lost, the DIXIANA series will touch you where it hurts.
Released in 2019
A bereaved mother seeking solace in the rural Carolina countryside instead finds herself embroiled in a depraved, backwoods fever dream, an animal lover’s nightmare: Finding a beautiful, secluded home far from Randi Margrave’s troubled life in the city seems like a step in the right direction–away from ruinous grief over her sweet son Denny, killed in a tragic accident.
Until, that is, she discovers her creampuff of a house sits uphill from a mysterious, camouflaged compound by the river, and from which she begins to hear a haunting chorus–dogs in distress. The sound of suffering.
And once Randi learns the shocking truth about her new neighbors and their dogs, she’ll decide to risk all she has left–including her own life–to stop Esau and Julius Macon from ever abusing another innocent animal.
“Real depth of characterization… enough momentum to keep the pages turning.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Once again, James D. McCallister has proven his mastery of the Southern novel. This story of a grieving mother’s crusade to stop cruelty tugs at a range of emotions and is well worth the read.” —Raegan Teller, Murder in Madden
Released May 1, 2018
Tasked with selling the idea of an honorary public monument to a reluctant, reclusive rock superstar, Southern novelist Cort Beauchamp finds himself in confrontation with loneliness, stagnation, and the lasting relevance of his own work. For the most part, he’d just like to be left alone—but he’s indebted to a mentor who made his own success possible, even if it now lies far in his own past.
Amidst a burgeoning creative revival in the community, a flowering of midlife romance, and a progressively personal beef with a Governor determined to undermine funding for the arts, Cort just might end up discovering fresh inspiration for his work . . . but only if his heart is in the right place.
Released on January 17, 2017
Reviews:
James D. McCallister’s funny, verbose, and memorable Cort Beauchamp is many artists: desperate to create, yet always standing in his own way. This stumbling hero’s journey is a most worthy read. —Carla Damron, The Stone Necklace
A witty, nuanced look at the struggles of a Columbia, South Carolina novelist trying to find his place in the wider creative landscape, while witnessing a creative blossoming in his hometown. Let the Glory Pass Away is big-hearted, sure-footed in its insights, and a whole heck of a lot of fun.” —Karin Gillespie, Love Literary Style
In 1997, thirty long years after the Summer of Love, millions mourned the death of music legend Rose Partland, a tireless creative spirit who led her iconic band Jack O’Roses . . . until the road finally consumed her. As though a devil had at last come for his due.
Of her legions of followers, none seems to suffer the loss of Rose more than Brian ‘Nibbs Niffy’ Godbold, who succumbs to his grief in a fashion similar to that of his idol—too young, too soon.
Now, best friend Ashton Tobias Zemp scours the journals and manuscripts Nibbs left behind, to seek a better answer to the question of his friend’s death—an accidental overdose, or outright suicide? When he begins to suspect the truth—that Nibbs Niffy went to his grave harboring an appalling and ruinous secret—Ash is forced to reconsider his own past: was he a ‘real’ fan, or just a fellow traveler?
Reviews:
“Lyrical, funny, and deeply touching, Fellow Traveler takes readers on a remarkable journey, with characters and scenes that claim America’s recent countercultural terrain as a proper–and powerful—subject for literature.” —Nicholas G. Meriwether, Grateful Dead Archivist, University of California-Santa Cruz
Fellow Traveler is as worthy a document of the latter-day Grateful Dead experience as any I’ve read, fictional or historical. —David Gans, This Is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead
“Fellow Traveler made me laugh, cry, reflect and remember–Deadheads and jamband fans who read this book will have an eerie sense of having been part of the story.”—Rebecca Adams, co-editor, Deadhead Social Science
“A truly charming and deft literary achievement—a magical, captivating work of fiction.”
—Gary McKinney, Darkness Bids the Dead Goodbye
“Fellow Traveler blends the mythology surrounding the Grateful Dead, and other bands in their mold, with a genuine love for the culture and its place in society.” —Vincent Craig Wright, Redemption Center
“The novel is to a large degree about not only how first- and second-generation Deadheads keep in touch with what they learned from the Dead, but also how the music and its significance get carried on to another generation. Unburdened by claims to ethnographic truth, Fellow Traveler lives up to its epigraph: ‘A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving’.” —Jay Williams, Senior Managing Editor, Critical Inquiry (writing in Dead Studies Vol. 3)
Raymond “Ray-Ray” DeKalb has everything going for him, but it sure doesn’t feel like it. At 19, he’s living the college high life, his folks have money, and he’s supposed to be going places—places his father has planned for him to go. For Ray, a career as a lawyer and politician are Nowheresville. Not that he has a better idea.
Add in the fact that his girlfriend’s dumped him for his own ghastly brother, and there’s nothing for it but to show them all that they can take their bourgeois, pre-planned ideas about his life and shove them where the sun doesn’t shine: it’s springtime 1978, it’s the era of sex, drugs, and rock & roll, and Myrtle Beach, that Southern mecca of youthful angst and yearning, with its boulevard of boundless promise and pavilion of infinite hope, lies a few miles down the road. But callow Ray-Ray will soon learn that even on the King’s Highway, a young man’s troubles follow him wherever he goes.
Reviews:
Feel the warm breath of an ocean breeze. Taste the salt of the sea and sweat. Hear the laughs and screams from the creaky old wooden roller coaster. And remember the time in your life when all the answers seemed just out of reach. King’s Highway is a journey not easily forgotten. —Carla Damron, The Stone Necklace
McCallister hits the bullseye with his main character, Myrtle Beach itself, the Cloud Cuckoo-Land of misspent youth—what we felt like when we thought the fun would never end, and what it felt like when it finally did. —Ben Steelman, Wilmington Star-Observer
Lost in an upwardly mobile world that doesn’t interest him, “Ray-Ray” DeKalb is on a path to find himself—a path of desire, personal destruction, and ultimate disaster. King’s Highway is a wonderfully written first novel by a writer who brings to life a bygone era on South Carolina’s Grand Strand.’ —Karen Petit, The Mystery at Foggy Bottom Lake
A coming-of-age story that any teenager, especially one who grew up in South Carolina, will recognize in many ways as his or her own. —Robert Lamb, Atlanta Blues and Striking Out
McCallister’s witty, unhurried style make this book a winner. —Bert Goolsby, Harper’s Joy
