Love and reruns in Adams County

In 1985, Lon Peterson returns to West Union, Ohio, after failing out of the minor leagues. His ex-wife, ex-cheerleader Pamela, has already come back to town and launched her career at McDonald's. Her new husband, Bobby, plays with "antique" toys he's supposed to be selling, watches game shows, and spends lunch hours with Becky Diane from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Lon himself moves on to younger girls who recognize him from his photo, which sits in the trophy case at West Union High, and he tries his hand at selling real estate, dressed in his only suit, the green one he got married in....

Mark Spencer illuminates their world - a landscape of cheap motels, trailer parks, and fast-food joints littered with smalltown minds and flimsy dreams. He explores the lives, eccentricities, and strange interrelationships of Lon and Pamela, their friends, lovers, and enemies, with piercing insight, sensitivity, and humor. Like his oddly endearing characters, Spencer sees a lightness in the wreckage.

In the tradition of Raymond Carver and Bobbie Ann Mason, Love and Reruns in Adams County is a quirky, compulsively readable story. In his debut novel, Mark Spencer proves himself an exciting presence in American fiction. Mark Spencer teaches writing at Cameron University.