The Fireball Brothers!

The Fireball Brothers is here!

Order from Livingston Press

Order from Amazon

ISBN: 978-1-60489-227-7, Trade Paper, $15.95

ISBN: 978-1-60489-228-4, Hard Cover $23.95

In 1959, two teenage brothers in rural Alabama are swimming in a pond when a fireball falls from the sky and lands in the water near them. When they come out, they are fused together, but nobody can figure out the cause. A doctor in New Orleans claims he can help them. To raise money for the surgery, they travel throughout the Southeast playing music. A wily reporter from Tupelo named Munford Coldwater follows their story as they meet snake oil salesmen and carnival barkers who try to take advantage of them. Filled with atmospheric music and setting, this novel mixes love, family, race, and political intrigue.

---

“Brothers fused together by a fireball from the sky! Cults and con men, grifters, impresarios, and quacks! A Sun Ra cameo! This Dixie picaresque has a wild, racketing imaginative energy, a breakneck pace, a beautifully evoked and utterly persuasive 1950s mid-South setting. Hornbuckle is a talent to watch.”
-Michael Griffith, author of Bibliophilia

---

“David Hornbuckle’s The Fireball Brothers is a story full of characters so full of want, you will fall in love with them all. At its heart, the novel is about Robert and Wally Mackintosh, who are joined together when a fireball crashes from the sky into the pond where they are swimming in Pickens County, Alabama, in June 1959. That fateful day starts the brothers on a journey to separate Wally’s hand from where it rests above Robert’s heart. They encounter hucksters and lovers, celebrities, and well-meaning passersby whose names will stay with you-Munford Coldwater, Sun Ra, Montalto, Cannaday-and because Hornbuckle writes about these characters with such care, their stories will stay with you, too. Hornbuckle’s 1959 is a southern cocktail of folk and jazz music and American-made fears-one part aliens and communism, one part urbanization and racial unrest. He imaginatively writes about all these things through Robert’s singular desire to have his life back to where it was before he went swimming with his brother. David Hornbuckle is a brilliant writer and The Fireball Brothers is a brilliant book.”
-James Braziel, author of Birmingham, 35 Miles and Snakeskin Road

---

[Hornbuckle is] “an alarmingly talented writer, who’s able to vividly communicate the wide spectrum of sensations and emotions—from intimacy to awkwardness to sheer frustration—that spring from the boys’ situation. He also seemingly effortlessly captures the atmosphere, pace, and cuisine of the American South, and shows an acute understanding of the political mood, resulting in an engrossing novel.
-Kirkus Reviews

---