"40 Patchtown reads like a cross between E.L. Doctorow's monumental novel Billy Bathgate and Breece Pancake's deathless story 'Hollow'--it's a work of fully imagined historical fiction that endows its characters with incandescent life, told in the unmistakable language of the early twentieth century coalfields. It pulls the neat trick of feeling bound to a highly specific time and place while simultaneously giving the impression of classic timelessness. As fine a first novel as one could hope for." Pinckney Benedict, author of Miracle Boy and Other Stories

Deftly paced, gritty and poised, pitch perfect in its voice and historical rendering, Damian Dressick's debut novel 40 Patchtown accelerates from its opening pages with desperate energy. Set against the comfortless backdrop of the brutal 1922 coal miners' strike of Windber, Pennsylvania, the novel follows fatherless fourteen-year-old Chet Pistakowski as he struggles to support his mother and siblings in a setting dictated by violence, poverty, and manipulation. Told in lean, convincing, and clear-eyed prose, this historical and evocative coming-of-age story reveals a young man torn between family and morality, desperation and desire, circumstances and escape. James Charlesworth, author of The Patricide of George Bernard Hill