The Unheralded King of Preston Plains Middle - eBook by Jedah Mayberry


Trajan Hopkins is the prototypical adolescent male, genus of the species, protected on all sides by the soft cushion of family. He worships his brother, Langston, invariably from a crouched defensive position in an effort to fend off the latest sequence of moves his brother is working to perfect.

Langston is widely regarded around town as Preston's most prolific fighter, steeped in martial arts, his ambition set on someday reaching the Olympic stage. Trajan fits neatly inside his brother's shadow, the dutiful second seed. When his brother dies, it's like one leg of a chair going missing, a wave of debilitating aftershocks sent rumbling throughout Trajan's existence warping his sense of connection to anybody near to him. He ventures into the world alone, steps out on the call of the wind, the rise of the moon, the tide pulling against him. He returns at the end of the night to diminished ties, the weave of familial cues strewn loose about him, waves crashing in, pushing him ever further from the shelter of home.

It tells a story of dislocation. A mother loses her eldest son. The other son loses his only brother. The boys’ father, estranged from the family ahead of his son’s death, loses his hold on everything dear to him. A grandfather stands by, calling on his spirit gods to set things right again, to piece his family back together.