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Brentwood, TN December 16, 2008 -- The Annunciations of Hank Meyerson, Mama'ss Boy and Scholar has been awarded the 2007 Parthenon Prize for Fiction. Established in 2007 by Nashville entrepreneur John Spence, the Parthenon Prize (www.parthenonprize.com) was created to give excellent, unknown authors a chance to place their works in circulation
In 2007, the competition garnered over 350 highly qualified submissions from throughout the country. The 2007 winner was awarded an $8,000 cash prize and an offer of a full traditional
standard book publishing contract. The final judge was Tony Earley, author of Jim the Boy, Here We Are in Paradise, and Somehow Form a Family. The competition was so successful that the
prize has been increased to $15,000.
Hooded Friar Press will release The Annunciations of Hank Meyerson (Hooded Friar Press, ISBN: 978-0-9817609-2-6, Hardcover, $23.95) on February 1, 2009.
Hank Meyerson isn'st the whiny sort of mama'ss boy. He'ss more the wry, shaggy, chubby sort. Hank Meyerson is an over-thinker, a ranter, and sometimes, a crier. He adores Emily Dickinson.
He kibitzes. He has the audacity to fall in love with his sister-in-law. Repercussions of a tryst kick-start a story of love, loss, and ultimately, redemption. Traversing from Minneapolis
to Montana to the fateful shallows of the St. Croix River, Hank waltzes toward tragedy with dazzling wit, affecting insight, and raw ruminations on everything from duck jokes and the toy
industry, to art, atonement, and our great human frailty.
According to Tony Earley, author of Jim the Boy, The Annunciations of Hank Meyerson is a vibrant, unruly stew of a book. Part slacker comedy and part Cain-and-Abel tragedy, it simmers,
and ultimately boils over, with the long list of appropriations - cultural, familiar, marital, extra-martial - the narrator makes in order to construct a self he can live with. Hank
Meyerson is simultaneously insightful and clueless, lovable and despicable, righteous, unrighteous, and self-righteous, in the myriad ways on the best drawn characters in fiction are.
The Annunciations of Hank Meyerson, Mama'ss Boy and Scholar establishes Scott Muskin as an original and exciting new voice in contemporary fiction.
Scott Muskin holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota and a BA from Grinnell College. He was a finalist for the 2005 Flannery O'sConnor Award for Short Fiction for his collection of
short stories. Scott lives in Minneapolis with his wife, new baby daughter, and their dog.
Hooded Friar Press (www.hoodedfriarpress.com) is a traditional publishing house dedicated to publishing high-quality books by new authors.
Members of the news media wishing to request an advance review copy of The Annunciations of Hank Meyerson, or an interview with novelist Scott Muskin are asked to contact Maryglenn
McCombs by phone - (615) 297-9875,