A FINALIST FOR A MAINE LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION
A NOTABLE SMALL PRESS BOOK OF 2025 FROM LITERARY HUB
ABOUT THE NOVEL:
EUPHORIA is a short story collection that explores the lives of ordinary people from Euphoria, Maine, pushed to the brink.
Though the town of Euphoria is a short distance from the sublime Maine coast, the cities of Portland and Boston, and the highway with its promise of a better life elsewhere, those few miles make a world of difference. Euphoria pulses with the steady rural thrum of a struggling paper mill, sagging farmhouses, trailer parks, impending suburbanization, and one streetlight that clicks from green to yellow to red. It is a town tourists drive through on their way to a dreamy coastal vacation and ask, “Who lives here anyway?”
The characters sticking it out in Euphoria live in a setting that offers both solace and brutal indifference. A young couple shelters in their new home as escaped zoo animals roam the Maine woods. A sober drug addict takes his mute son to state parks to keep the boy away from his mother who has plummeted back into the death grip of addiction. A mill-worker goes on a ride with his dead brother’s friend, discovering that a town farmer is raising more than just cattle, corn, and marijuana. A mother and her son escape domestic unrest in hopes of a better life in Euphoria.
Purchase the book from Littoral Books
PRAISE FOR THE COLLECTION:
“In these ten stories, Patterson finds empathy in every character, all connected by the town of Euphoria, and the mastery comes with not knowing if it’s love or loss until the very end of each.” -Electric Lit
“Patterson deftly creates vivid pain, loss, and weakness for everyone, but he also brings courage, humor, and light. Patterson never misses here. Every story is powerfully memorable.” -Literary Hub
“Dave Patterson’s Euphoria, is a beautiful, often heartbreaking collection of stories. Each is vividly set in the same Maine town, but also in the deepest, most private recesses of the human heart. It will leave you breathless.” –Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls and the North Bath Trilogy of Fool novels
In Euphoria, Dave Patterson skillfully captures the ethos of a once-thriving Maine mill town. The characters who walk, drive, and fire dance their way through the town of Euphoria are achingly familiar, each striving, in their own way to find connection and meaning amid a backdrop of poverty, grief, addiction, and uncertainty. –Shannon Bowring, author of the Dalton Novels trilogy
“Throughout this ultravivid collection, Dave Patterson’s kaleidoscopic eye incites deep longing, mystery, and wonder. You won’t be able to shake the stories in Euphoria —they light up the brain and wrangle the heart.” –Lewis Robinson, author of The Islanders
A NOTABLE SMALL PRESS BOOK OF 2025 FROM LITERARY HUB
ABOUT THE NOVEL:
EUPHORIA is a short story collection that explores the lives of ordinary people from Euphoria, Maine, pushed to the brink.
Though the town of Euphoria is a short distance from the sublime Maine coast, the cities of Portland and Boston, and the highway with its promise of a better life elsewhere, those few miles make a world of difference. Euphoria pulses with the steady rural thrum of a struggling paper mill, sagging farmhouses, trailer parks, impending suburbanization, and one streetlight that clicks from green to yellow to red. It is a town tourists drive through on their way to a dreamy coastal vacation and ask, “Who lives here anyway?”
The characters sticking it out in Euphoria live in a setting that offers both solace and brutal indifference. A young couple shelters in their new home as escaped zoo animals roam the Maine woods. A sober drug addict takes his mute son to state parks to keep the boy away from his mother who has plummeted back into the death grip of addiction. A mill-worker goes on a ride with his dead brother’s friend, discovering that a town farmer is raising more than just cattle, corn, and marijuana. A mother and her son escape domestic unrest in hopes of a better life in Euphoria.
Purchase the book from Littoral Books
PRAISE FOR THE COLLECTION:
“In these ten stories, Patterson finds empathy in every character, all connected by the town of Euphoria, and the mastery comes with not knowing if it’s love or loss until the very end of each.” -Electric Lit
“Patterson deftly creates vivid pain, loss, and weakness for everyone, but he also brings courage, humor, and light. Patterson never misses here. Every story is powerfully memorable.” -Literary Hub
“Dave Patterson’s Euphoria, is a beautiful, often heartbreaking collection of stories. Each is vividly set in the same Maine town, but also in the deepest, most private recesses of the human heart. It will leave you breathless.” –Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls and the North Bath Trilogy of Fool novels
In Euphoria, Dave Patterson skillfully captures the ethos of a once-thriving Maine mill town. The characters who walk, drive, and fire dance their way through the town of Euphoria are achingly familiar, each striving, in their own way to find connection and meaning amid a backdrop of poverty, grief, addiction, and uncertainty. –Shannon Bowring, author of the Dalton Novels trilogy
“Throughout this ultravivid collection, Dave Patterson’s kaleidoscopic eye incites deep longing, mystery, and wonder. You won’t be able to shake the stories in Euphoria —they light up the brain and wrangle the heart.” –Lewis Robinson, author of The Islanders
ABOUT THE NOVEL:
A twelve-year-old boy lives with his family in a small, poverty-stricken town in Vermont. His father works at a manufacturing plant, his mother is a homemaker, and his fifteen-year-old brother is about to enter high school. His family has gained enough financial stability to move out of the nearby trailer park, and as conflict rages abroad, his father’s job at a weapons manufacturing plant appears safe. But then his mother is diagnosed with cancer, and everything changes.
Set over the course of one propulsive summer, Soon the Light Will Be Perfect chronicles the journey of two brothers on the cusp of adulthood, a town battered by poverty and a family at a breaking point. In spare, fiercely honest prose, Dave Patterson captures what it feels like to be gloriously, violently alive at a moment of political, social and familial instability.
Purchase the novel from Print: A Bookstore, one of Portland, Maine’s premiere independent booksellers.
PRAISE FOR THE NOVEL:
“Soon The Light Will Be Perfect is so deeply moving because it is so achingly true. You will not soon forget these people, this place.” -Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Empire Falls
“Stunning debut.” –New York Post
“Soon the Light will be Perfect is as unexpected and beautiful as a rainbow over a junkyard. It is a pitch-perfect novel. Cinematic and gritty, rugged and fragile, wickedly wry and heartbreakingly sad. This is a book for sinners and saints alike. A glorious mash-up of The Outsiders, David Sedaris, and Andre Dubus. I devoured this wonderful, wonderful debut novel and have become already impatient to read Patterson’s next book.” -Nickolas Butler, internationally bestselling author of Shotgun Lovesongs and The Hearts of Men
“Soon the Light Will Be Perfect is a heartbreaking, gently wrought story about reckonings: with adulthood, faith, love, and death.” –BuzzFeed
“Devastating, beautiful, worth it.” –New York Public Library
“Patterson’s spare style and his ability to touch on conflicts and tensions without always resolving them makes the novel a beautiful exploration of what it means to come of age in difficult circumstances.” –Portland Press Herald
“Dave Patterson’s Soon the Light Will Be Perfect is a striking debut novel from a writer whose eye for the poignancy of childhood and family is second to none. This foray with a young man on the verge of adolescence showcases the unique pressures of class, illness, and faith in small-town Vermont rife with broken dreams and missed opportunities. This is a novel that will seize your heart.” -Michael Nye, author of All the Castles Burned
“This is a deceptively simple novel trending deep in the human heart. Patterson makes you want to jump into the story and hug the hell out of his characters.” -Dan McCarthy, Library Director, Searsmont Library, Searsmont, Maine
“Dave Patterson delivers a coming-of-age tale thick with the smell of stale cigarette smoke, chemical-sweet fabric softener, cat piss, and polyurethane all lingering in the air of a densely humid New England summer. It’s a story of conflicted Catholic pubescence brought to bear in moments of staggering poetic realism that’ll have you dizzy with anticipation and leave you wanting more.” -Michael Macomber, owner of Elements: Books Coffee Beer, Biddeford, Maine
To inquire about a speaking engagement or a media request contact Laura Gianino at Harper Collins: [email protected].
ABOUT THE NOVEL:
A twelve-year-old boy lives with his family in a small, poverty-stricken town in Vermont. His father works at a manufacturing plant, his mother is a homemaker, and his fifteen-year-old brother is about to enter high school. His family has gained enough financial stability to move out of the nearby trailer park, and as conflict rages abroad, his father’s job at a weapons manufacturing plant appears safe. But then his mother is diagnosed with cancer, and everything changes.
Set over the course of one propulsive summer, Soon the Light Will Be Perfect chronicles the journey of two brothers on the cusp of adulthood, a town battered by poverty and a family at a breaking point. In spare, fiercely honest prose, Dave Patterson captures what it feels like to be gloriously, violently alive at a moment of political, social and familial instability.
Purchase the novel from Print: A Bookstore, one of Portland, Maine’s premiere independent booksellers.
PRAISE FOR THE NOVEL:
“Soon The Light Will Be Perfect is so deeply moving because it is so achingly true. You will not soon forget these people, this place.” -Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Empire Falls
“Stunning debut.” –New York Post
“Soon the Light will be Perfect is as unexpected and beautiful as a rainbow over a junkyard. It is a pitch-perfect novel. Cinematic and gritty, rugged and fragile, wickedly wry and heartbreakingly sad. This is a book for sinners and saints alike. A glorious mash-up of The Outsiders, David Sedaris, and Andre Dubus. I devoured this wonderful, wonderful debut novel and have become already impatient to read Patterson’s next book.” -Nickolas Butler, internationally bestselling author of Shotgun Lovesongs and The Hearts of Men
“Soon the Light Will Be Perfect is a heartbreaking, gently wrought story about reckonings: with adulthood, faith, love, and death.” –BuzzFeed
“Devastating, beautiful, worth it.” –New York Public Library
“Patterson’s spare style and his ability to touch on conflicts and tensions without always resolving them makes the novel a beautiful exploration of what it means to come of age in difficult circumstances.” –Portland Press Herald
“Dave Patterson’s Soon the Light Will Be Perfect is a striking debut novel from a writer whose eye for the poignancy of childhood and family is second to none. This foray with a young man on the verge of adolescence showcases the unique pressures of class, illness, and faith in small-town Vermont rife with broken dreams and missed opportunities. This is a novel that will seize your heart.” -Michael Nye, author of All the Castles Burned
“This is a deceptively simple novel trending deep in the human heart. Patterson makes you want to jump into the story and hug the hell out of his characters.” -Dan McCarthy, Library Director, Searsmont Library, Searsmont, Maine
“Dave Patterson delivers a coming-of-age tale thick with the smell of stale cigarette smoke, chemical-sweet fabric softener, cat piss, and polyurethane all lingering in the air of a densely humid New England summer. It’s a story of conflicted Catholic pubescence brought to bear in moments of staggering poetic realism that’ll have you dizzy with anticipation and leave you wanting more.” -Michael Macomber, owner of Elements: Books Coffee Beer, Biddeford, Maine
To inquire about a speaking engagement or a media request contact Laura Gianino at Harper Collins: [email protected].
