The Big Door Prize | Walsh, M. O.

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The New York Times bestselling author of My Sunshine Away returns with a gripping and heartfelt novel about a mysterious machine that upends a small Louisiana town, asking us all to wonder if who we truly are is who we truly could be.

What would you do if you knew your life's potential? That's the question facing the residents of Deerfield, Louisiana, when the DNAMIX machine appears in their local grocery store. It's nothing to look at, really it resembles a plain photo booth. But its promise is amazing: With just a quick swab of your cheek and two dollars, the device claims to use the science of DNA to tell you your life's potential. With enough credibility to make the townspeople curious, soon the former teachers, nurses, and shopkeepers of Deerfield are abruptly changing course to pursue their destinies as magicians, cowboys, and athletes including the novel's main characters, Douglas Hubbard and his wife, Cherilyn, who both believed they were perfectly happy until they realized they could dream for more....

Written with linguistic grace and a sense of wonder, The Big Door Prize sparkles with keen observations about what it might mean to stay true to oneself while honoring the bonds of marriage, friendship, and community, and how the glimmer of possibility can pull these bonds apart, bring them back together, and make second chances possible, even under the strangest of circumstances.

Rezensierung
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One of the most big-hearted books you ll ever read. Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish

The ability to take what is primarily a funny, engaging, leisurely paced look at Small Town, USA, a la Fannie Flagg, and turn it into a breathless, high-stakes page-turner in the last 60 pages speaks to the mastery of Walsh s storytelling skills. But what makes The Big Door Prize most appealing is its deeply humane characters who are primarily sweet and kind-hearted, but who get drunk and fight and act a fool just enough to give them a bit of an edge. Weaving it all together is a gentle sense of humor conveyed through comic events and clever observations that make us laugh not so much at the characters but at the sight of ourselves within them. Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Big Door Prize is M. O. Walsh s long-awaited second novel and a captivating analysis of human nature, ambition, and how we chase our dreams while honoring our relationships and commitments. Deep South Magazine

[Walsh] eloquently explores the idea of second changes and makes the surreal seem achingly and poignantly authentic. Augusta Chronicle

Walsh s brand of comic tenderness is the perfect soother for these troubled times .Like Thornton Wilder or Edgar Lee Masters, those other masters of the small town collective portrait, Walsh probes the secrets at the heart of individual lives and reminds us to look long, listen hard, and offer compassion. The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate

The premise [of The Big Door Prize] is fantastic and at the same time, simple .M. O. Walsh is a gift. He is imaginative and productive....Definitely one to watch. Tuscaloosa News

All of [the] characters are fully realized and artfully drawn .From the opening line, the reader has the sense of a wise, omniscient narrator peeking into various bars, cars, and bedroom windows, a twinkle in his eye as he brings some mischief to the lives within .These connections lie at the heart of The Big Door Prize, and what an enormous heart it is. Chapter 16

[A] surprising and heartwarming contemporary drama about looking back and looking forward Readers of this singular, nuanced story will, quite possibly and without a machine as prompt, undertake their own personal reflection. Shelf Awareness

[A] big-hearted and magical novel about fate, identity and the loyalties of a small town Combining the humor and heart of small-town cozy fiction with the poignancy of literary fiction and the drama of domestic suspense, M. O. Walsh proves once again that he is a writer who needs to live on your bookshelves. BookReporter

Walsh skirts the edge of fantasy in this playful and touching tale....The novel transcends its quirky premise, offering many insights on the mysteries of the human heart. Publishers Weekly (starred review)

It s hard to believe that Walsh wrote this moving novel long before the COVID-19 pandemic, for there is eerie prescience in its soulful message that gratitude and grace are not to be taken for granted and that life can be upended in an instant. Booklist (starred review)

'An eccentric, well-written small-town novel jam-packed with appealing characters and their dreams.' Kirkus Reviews

The Big Door Prize calls attention to the ordinary, hard-won joys of real people. M. O. Walsh s second novel is a feel-good read in a down-home setting, with serious undertones. BookPage

Think of The Big Door Prize as a beautiful box full of all the things that compose our lives: love, fate, chance, jealousy, sadness, jokes, desire, and music. M.O. Walsh gives us all this and more, page after page, until we feel as if we know a little bit more about everything there is worth knowing. One of the most big-hearted books you ll ever read, about so much, but, in the end, really about the secret of life: the specifics of caring. Daniel Wallace, author of Extraordinary Adventures and Big Fish

'The lives of a couple facing their mid-life crisis and a young man coming of age intersect in this humorous and hopeful novel. M.O. Walsh has never been afraid to go down into the darkest places of the human heart, but his truthfulness is balanced by a beautiful optimism, just as his sharp humor is leavened by his genuine affection for the layered, vital characters he creates. A wise, wry, twisty, and entertaining tale. I loved it.' Joshilyn Jackson, author of Never Have I Ever

'The characters in The Big Door Prize are familiar yet curious so much like my own neighbors that I began to weave myself into the story, considering other lives I might live if I were braver, pluckier. Walsh's novel is the ideal summer read, an immersive escape as well as a brilliant examination of free will vs. determinism.' Mary Miller, author of Biloxi and Always Happy Hour

Part mystery, all charm. The big prize here is for readers: a heartwarming and eccentric page-turner in the grand tradition of Southern literature that will keep you wondering until the very end. Walsh writes his characters with great respect to prove we're never too old to discover new things about ourselves. Steven Rowley, author of The Editor and Lily and the Octopus

Buchausschnitt

1

The Hubbards

After thirty-nine years and eleven-plus months, Douglas Hubbard had finally had enough of being Douglas Hubbard. So, for his fortieth birthday, just last Friday, he bought himself a trombone. It was a thing he'd long wanted and, now that it was purchased, Douglas felt this object made him an entirely new man. He was so excited, in fact, he spent his entire weekend polishing the instrument until it nearly glowed, standing in front of the full-length mirror in his and his wife's bedroom, spinning aloud out magical phrases like Dizzy Douglas, Herbie Hubbard, and Thelonious Doug. He dreamt up enough jazzy nicknames in the first few days alone to sustain several impressive careers and yet had not even put lip to mouthpiece. Why bother? When a person finds as much joy as Douglas did in simply imagining themselves to be someone else, the actual work required to change, along with so many other things they hold dear, can be forgotten.

But tonight, after clumsily blaring his way through his first trombone lesson at a friend's apartment, Douglas Hubbard returned home to his wife, moved aside the wooden birdhouses she'd been building those past months, and set his trombone case down on the table. 'Well,' he said. 'It's official. I can't play a note.'

'Don't be silly,' his wife said. Then she began to cry.

This was unusual.

Cherilyn Hubbard was typically warm and upbeat at this hour, which she called their wine time, and Douglas always looked forward to seeing her. Through fifteen years of what they would both call a happy and uncomplicated marriage, she had remained redheaded and faithful, busy and beautiful in her unpretentious way, and as quick to offer love and encouragement to Douglas as she'd been on the days he first fell for her. But, on this night, she stood alone at the far end of their modest kitchen and, instead of greeting Douglas with a hug at the door, wiped at her eyes with the undersides of her wrists. She then leaned heavily against their blue-and-white countertop, which was covered in flipped-open magazines. Beside her, a pot of water boiled quietly on the stove. Near the sink, a box of macaroni and cheese stood unopened. Next to that, Douglas knew, because the day was Wednesday, two hamburger patties sizzled over low, greasy heat in the skillet.

Douglas said nothing. He instead removed the blazer he had draped over his arm and placed it on a chair, hung his keys on a hook screwed into the wall for that purpose. He then took off his hat, a brown woolen beret he'd taken to wearing since he bought the trombone, and arranged the wayward hairs on his balding head. He knew Cherilyn hadn't been feeling well. Some powerful headaches, lately, a dizzy spell or two. He'd been meaning to talk to her about this. The amount of aspirin bottles he'd found about the house, the antihistamine nose spray she'd taken to cupping in her palm those past mornings. The naps she took at odd hours. These are the minor changes to a marital landscape that can worry a thoughtful husband like Douglas. Yet he'd chalked most of it up to stress.

Cherilyn was busy of late in atypical ways. She'd signed up to sell her own handmade birdhouses at the Deerfield Bicentennial that weekend, would have her own booth on the square both Saturday and Sunday, and so had spent the past few months turning their home into a sort of avian sweatshop. There were probably a hundred of the little houses always in eyesight, each in some incomplete phase of construction, with not much time left before the event. That could make anyone nervous. Still, Douglas knew she enjoyed her crafts, had signed up for this booth herself, and so he did not press her.

There were other things it could be, of course, besides bird homes. The oncoming heat of a southern spring. The exhaustion from dealing with