Happy launch day of BLISS!
I’m so incredibly proud of Mike (Fredrick’s other name) for this major milestone in his writing career; and to commemorate the moment, I want to share some of the amazing press and praise for his debut novel. Take a minute to check it out. We also invite you to join in our celebration in any of the following three ways:
Share photos from an event or when you receive your copy in the mail on social media by tagging @21stcenturyfred on Twitter, @Fredrick M. Soukup on Facebook, or @Fredrick.Soukup on Instagram.
Recommend Bliss to a friend and bring them along to an upcoming reading:
Thu. Apr. 16: 7 p.m. | Storied Owl, St. Paul
Fri. Jun. 5: 7 p.m. | Cream & Amber, Hopkins
We hope to see many of you at his launch party tonight (Monday 3/2) at Next Chapter Books in St. Paul, MN!
Press
Pequot Lakes graduate Soukup publishes his debut novel - Pine & Lakes ECHO
Author appearances: Bestselling writers Gish Jen and Arthur Phillips will read from new — and very different — novels - Pioneer Press
Regal House Publishing Author Fredrick Soukup joins Susan Wingate on Dialogue - Dialogue
A Tale of Two Americas: Mac-Groveland author’s debut novel confronts the wall between the affluent and underserved in U.S. - The Villager (In Print Only)
Readings & Writers - Duluth News Tribune
Entertainment Briefs — Feb. 27 - Brainerd Dispatch
Praise for BLISS
“Soukup’s characters are like tidal waves, the changes in their lives build quietly, grippingly, and crash into the reader with real force. He writes about longing and youth, duty and family with wit and clarity. I’ve read him for years, and while Bliss may be his debut, it is just a glimpse of the gifts he has to offer.”
— Kyle Ellingson, whose short stories have appeared in CutBank,The Carolina Quarterly, Hobart, Redivider, and Chicago Quarterly Review.
“Bliss is just one of the emotions pulsating within Soukup’s impressive debut novel. With its finely wrought sentences and painstakingly crafted characters, this book—and its unlikely hero, Connor —traverses the gamut of human experience: Frustration. Despair. Joy. Rage. Hope. And most of all, Love. Or, “near-Love,” perhaps, for the world around him and the world within him. Readers will recognize Connor’s story and they will hear Soukup’s voice.”
— Matt Callahan, St. John’s University
“Bliss is deft, moving, and sharply observed, seamlessly weaving together the affluent, superficial world of the suburbs with that of an inner city neighborhood pulsing with energy and danger. But if Frederick Soukup’s novel is a skillful evocation of time and place, it also tells the timeless story of a young man on a quest to find out where—and with whom—he belongs.”
— Laurie Ann Doyle, author of World Gone Missing, winner of the Alligator Juniper National Fiction Award, and the 2018 Nautilus Award Winner
“Fredrick Soukup’s Bliss sets a swift pace from the outset that readers are happy to keep up with as we follow each step taken by Connor, a young man pulled by opposing forces in his elusive search for certainty about his proper place and purpose. Both disaffected and enticed by the bourgeois values of his upbringing, Connor commits himself whole-heartedly to the unfamiliar world of struggling inner-city youth and then, with as much conviction, to the middle-class life he had left behind. We believe in the sincerity of his attachment at each stage and feel the lure of both settings and of the two women he loves. Soukup paints the characters quickly and vividly with prose that sounds like poetry. We are not allowed to enter their minds directly but understand their mentalities thoroughly through their actions and well-crafted dialogue. The novel is full of activity, but the real achievement is the evocation of an internal struggle for an authentic way of life.”
— Scott Richardson, St. John’s University, author of The Homeric Narrator and Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles: The Enigma of Francis Crawford
“In Bliss, Fredrick Soukup has put together a story of loss and longing in simple language that drags the reader into the story, wrapping them in want and worry. His characters are rich and deep and inescapable.”
— William Alton, author of The Tragedy of Being Happy