“Our sires’ age was worse than our grandsires’. We their sons are more worthless than they: so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.“
– Horace
A work in progress, Snag Town is a literary novel about a once-great California farming family on the brink of extinction, struggling for a way forward in the 21st century, where water is sparse and crops are controlled by latex gloved scientists and private equity funds.
For six generations, the Pride family’s rice fields and walnut orchards have dotted the landscape surrounding the town that bears its name. Once a source of wealth and esteem, the family’s land has been whittled down to a thousand heavily leveraged acres—all of which are about to be placed under water restrictions.
Enter 29-year-old Gwen Pride, the youngest, most agriculturally challenged of this deeply dysfunctional, Welsh American clan.
It’s the middle of the night, following the worst day of Gwen’s life. Still heavily inebriated after some serious day-drinking, all Gwen wants is to sleep. Except she can’t. Her eight-year-old niece is on the other end of the line crying. Her mother, Gwen’s older sister, is unconscious on the kitchen floor following a bizarre late-night cleaning episode.
Compelled to act, Gwen arrives in town hours later with an overnight bag and a potted plant with no clue how to help anyone, least of all herself. Waiting for Gwen are the four horsemen of the Pride family apocalypse—dementia, debt, addiction and unmet filial expectation.
Instantly trapped in the embrace of her emotional vampire relatives, Gwen worries she may fall prey to their life-sucking ways. Desperate for the normalcy of her San Francisco apartment and investment banking job, Gwen devises an escape plan to deliver her family from the bonds of its mostly self-inflicted ancestral damnation.
Snag Town explores the loss of family identity and the painful but positive transformation possible when members reject generational legacy—and accompanying trauma—for a fresh start.