Loiacono Literary Agency takes on Jason Dew’s novel Up on the Hill!

Charlie Allen is an aging man who sweeps floors and cleans bathrooms at Cougar’s Crossing Elementary School. After work, he visits his wife, Chick, who lives in a nursing home due to the fact that she cannot be trusted. At sixty-seven, he knows the sun is beginning to set on his life, yet one morning, like any other, the green tennis ball appears at the foot of his kitchen table; a ball he has not held in over fifty years. In another time, Charlie Allen would have thrown it and his beloved dog, Molly, would have brought it back.

So begins a story that oscillates between one man’s traumatic past and a present he shares with a fifth-grade teacher who is in the midst of her own personal battle. Charlie Allen did the unthinkable when he was a boy, and the weight of that memory has been a tremendous burden on his soul. On top of all that, there is now a killer on the loose in the rustic Pennsylvania county they call home; a killer who also did the unthinkable. Only the bearded janitor with the missing tooth can initiate the events that will lead to unfortold events. Will Charlie Allen disregard the green tennis ball? Call it an odd occurrence? Dismiss it with old man fatigue? Or, will he throw it into the dark, dark night to see what happens?

Jason Michael Dew was born and raised in Northwestern Pennsylvania, a region he often explores in his writing. He earned his BA from Lock Haven University, an MS from Georgia State University, and an MA and PhD from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Gadly Plain and All the Bad Things, and is currently on the faculty at Georgia State University in Atlanta, where he makes his home with his wife and three daughters.

Jason Dew is represented by Jeanie Loiacono, Loiacono Literary Agency. [email protected]