Novels
- The Decatur Road (1983)
- Kentucky Love (1985)
- A Flatland Fable (1986)
- The Loop (1992)
- Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God (1995)
- Apologizing to Dogs (1999)
- One Vacant Chair (2003)
- Pocketful of Names (2005)
Collections
Non fiction
- Dream House (1992)
- Sailing in a Spoonful of Water (1997)
Novels Book Covers
Collections Book Covers
Non fiction Book Covers
Joe Coomer Books Overview
The Loop
Lyman, a thirty year old orphan, is sipping coffee on the front steps of the trailer he calls home one morning, when a ninety year old parrot arrives with a beakful of cryptic sayings such as ‘That which hath wings shall tell the matter’ and a mysterious past. Convinced that heeding the bird’s wisdom will lead him to answers about himself he so desperately seeks, Lyman combines his night job as a courtesy patrolman, circling the highway that loops around Fort Worth, with days in the library. Together with Fiona, the loquacious librarian, he traces his adopted pet’s origins, and while what Lyman ultimately discovers may not help him piece together his own past, it paves the way for a future he never imagined.
Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God
Nine weeks after losing her husband, Charlotte escapes to a wooden motor yacht in New Hampshire, where her shipmates are an aging blue haired widow, an emotional seventeen year old, and the ugliest dog in literature. A genuine bond develops among the three women, as their distinct personalities and paths cross and converge against the backdrop of emotional secrets, abuse, and the wages of old age. Off the boat, Charlotte, an archaeologist, joins a local excavation to uncover an ancient graveyard. Here she can indulge her passion for reconstructing the past, even as she tries to bury her own recent history. She comes to realize, however, that the currents of time are as fluid and persistent as the water that drifts beneath her comforting new home.
Apologizing to Dogs
Times are tough on Worth Row. This is not to say, however, that it is by any means quiet on the Row, a place where bathtubs double as lawn furniture, and adultery, bribery and larceny are as commonplace as the glass eyeballs that pop up in every yard all that remains from the prosthetics mill that once sat on this land. For more than thirty years, the Row’s antiques dealers have run their businesses from the front rooms of their aging shotgun style houses. After all this time, their lives have become inextricably linked and undeniably complicated. It is suddenly clear that there’s more to be exposed on the Row than buried body parts: it seems everyone has something to hide from their customers, their spouses, even themselves. And they feel they’re being watched…
. They are. The seventy two year old widow Effie keeps a minute by minute journal of her neighbors’ activities, following even stray dogs from house to house, peeking, staring and spying, sure they are all out to steal her past, ruin her future, and plunder her ‘better things.’ The fact is, Row residents have far more to concern them than old Effie. Carl, behind curtains he never opens, is using his considerable woodworking talents to turn his life and his house inside out to prove his devotion to the vintage clothing dealer Nadine. Howard Dog in His Path, a grave robbing Indian, keeps count of every pet buried in his neighbors’ backyards. The Postlethwaites, running from a tragic past, have retired to long days at the mall photo shop, where they watch pictures of other people’s lives roll off the developing machines. Mose, an aged inventor, is trying his hand at the ultimate invention: true love. Mazelle, a used book dealer, has given up reading because the secret life she lives in the cistern beneath her husband’s garden is far more interesting than any fiction. The dog Himself has no greater secret than the location of his next meal, but what he digs up may reveal more than his fellow Row residents would like. From the quirky to the certifiable, folks on the Row have definitely gotten their lines crossed. When a violent storm strikes, causing fire, a heart attack and grand theft, it stirs up more than just the earth it hits. Suddenly, long buried truths are flowing faster than the flooding rains. When the dust and smoke finally clear, the Row has been turned upside down and nobody human or dog will ever be the same again. With a strong, rich and uproariously funny voice, Joe Coomer resurrects the magic of his previous novels, Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God and The Loop, and turns the utterly ordinary into the stunningly extraordinary. With a splendid cast of characters and the cleverest canine in comedy, Apologizing to Dogs is a hilarious, heartwarming and wonderfully human tale and proves that no matter how old you get, there’s always something worth holding on to, fighting for and loving with all your might.
One Vacant Chair
A hilarious and irresistible new novel by Joe Coomer, whom The Washington Times calls ‘a marvelously creative comic writer’ It’s where you sit down that determines everything in life. Sarah’s aunt Edna paints portraits of chairs. Not people in chairs, just chairs. The old house is filled with the paintings, and the chairs themselves surround her work a silent yet vigilant audience. At the funeral of Grandma Hutton whom Edna has cared for through an agonizingly long and vague illness Sarah begins helping her aunt clean up the last of a life. This includes honoring Grandma’s surprising wish to have her ashes scattered in Scotland.’We were two fat women, eighteen years apart, a chair artist and a designer of Christmas ornaments, who only knew we had troubles and a hot summer to get through,’ says Sarah. But as it turns out, there is a great deal more to quirky Aunt Edna’s troubles than Sarah could possibly imagine. As the novel turns from the hot, oppressive heat of Texas to the misty beauty of Scotland, she learns of her aunt’s remarkable secret life and comes to fully understand the fragile business of living, and even of dying. Praised for his richly drawn characters and as a master storyteller, Joe Coomer is at the height of his powers in One Vacant Chair. Winner of the S. Mariella Gable Fiction Prize
Pocketful of Names
Coomer writes so well, with such freshness and authenticity, that we hate to put the book down. The Boston GlobeThe first thing Hannah said to the dog: I don t know if there’s enough room for you on this island. I m already here. Inhabiting an island off the coast of Maine left to her by her great uncle Arno, Hannah finds her life as a dedicated and solitary artist rudely interrupted one summer when a dog, matted with feathers and seaweed, arrives with the tide. The dog quickly endears himself and easily adapts to Hannah s habits, but he is only the first in a series of unexpected visitors. He is soon followed by a teenager running from an abusive father, a half sister in trouble, a mainland family in need, and a trapped whale. Now in the midst of a community that depends on her for support and love, Hannah faces new emotional challenges as family secrets are uncovered, each one more alarming than the next. In his latest novel, Joe Coomer offers the rugged yet stunning beauty of Maine and the lobstermen and their families who are tethered to the sea for survival. Pocketful of Names is a deeply human tale about the unpredictability of nature, art, family, and whatever else washes up on the shore.
Sailing in a Spoonful of Water
Joe Coomer whose fiction includes the beloved New England novel Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God, is a writer of rare warmth, generosity, and insight. Sailing in a Spoongful of Water is his memior of your years spent aboard his vintage motorsailor, Yonder, off the coast of Maine. This is a book that will entrance lovers of the sea, yet more deeply is it’s abook about family: In prose rich with humor and awe, Coomer revisits the signal moments in his life and finds in his wife and their parents and grandparents his own safest harbor. The work of a writer whose powers grow with each book, Sailing in a Spoonful of Water is that uncommon thing a book full of welcome and joy.
Related Authors