New Book :: My Secret Place

My Secret Place
Stories by Max Talley
Main Street Rag Publishing Company, July 2022

In My Secret Place, Max Talley deftly mixes humor with pathos with biting social commentary in seventeen short stories, of legendary jazz musicians meeting for a recording session in 1966, of a painter dealing with the art market crash in downtown Manhattan, of a woman’s surreal walk home in Southern California after another day as a house cleaner, about a mid-’70s bar band achieving one-hit-wonder status, and a middle-aged wife dreaming of her imperious Long Island youth. Talley describes musicians and artists, underdogs and eccentrics; secret heroes of their own lives. People driven by eccentric quests that bewilder friends and family. Apartment managers, stoned teenagers, and pop culture collectors, all trying to live in and make sense of a modern world that may have already left them behind. Talley’s first novel, Yesterday We Forget Tomorrow, debuted in 2014, and his crime thriller, Santa Fe Psychosis, was published by Dark Edge Press in spring 2022. He teaches a writing workshop at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and at Santa Fe Workshops. More at www.maxdevoetalley.com.