Eli Richardson

Make Me Eli Richardson

Stacy is rudderless in a sea of sex. The sharks circle. It is inhumane what people will do to one another when they smell blood; bleak scenes of sad people looking to get made... There are men and women, and those that are neither. Both. All three. Stacy is a fantasy, a fall guy, a blushing bride, a brawler. Who do you need? MAKE ME. Stacy is told, "the real beauty is what's inside a person" and shoots back, "I'm going to get my inner-ugliness a drink." Fired, pimped, kicked out of the ghetto, "I'm nothing." On the lam through the wilds of Kansas & backstage in Branson, "It's not who you are so much as who people think you are." Freak shows in the Ozarks, friction in the divided South, "Creatures with physical abominations ain't usually long for this Earth... Got to color inside the lines in this world." In the muggy euphoria & bleak beat of New Orleans, "The trick is to be a clown and not act like a fool." Gunfights in the bayou, romance in East Texas. A broken heart and true love. Either way. "Ain't nothing there." "MAKE ME is a daring and electric road trip through relationship, sexuality, connection and missed connection, karma and coming home. Throughout the novel, Richardson's ear for poetry and rhythms of human interaction blast through. Written in fast-paced snapshots, Richardson is a master with dialogue and the nuances of how conversations reveal what's outside of words as well as writing along and over the edge into territory shivering with danger and possibility. " Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Kansas Poet Laureate 2009-2013