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Hotline Heaven
Monk and Jo are a suffering pair who came together one night on Hotline Heaven. She was the caller, he was the voice up there. That was five years ago, before he became Home-Mart Man of the Month and she became the baker at The Cake & Coffee.Presently, Monk's quest is to supervise the construction of the first Mega Home-Mart in the country while Jo's is to create the cake of a lifetime. Their quests have more to do with working up their wills to live than with building and baking.
Why so many rough spots on the road? Monk's agony stems from a dead red-haired son named Micky, buried by a sassafras tree. Micky loved seeds -- "watermelon, apple, sunflower, all kinds" -- and Monk's convinced that those culprits planted the brain rumor that killed him. "All that crunching did something to his head. Set off some bad cells. My ex used to say, if that the way you think, you're next?" Jo's pain goes way back, to the mysterious day her father took a canoe out on a lake and blasted himself out of this miserable world. Needless to say, it all messed with Jo's mind. What would she do to squint out just one clear memory of him? Maybe jump off a rock into the rapids! But life goes on.
When Monk runs into difficulty at work, and Jo is pressured to create the cake of her lifetime, their lives begin to unravel.
"Hotline Heaven" is a dark, lyrical comedy about a middle-age couple in love, whose pasts beat them down. But the message -- like the one that saved Jo five years ago -- is that life triumphs.
Why so many rough spots on the road? Monk's agony stems from a dead red-haired son named Micky, buried by a sassafras tree. Micky loved seeds -- "watermelon, apple, sunflower, all kinds" -- and Monk's convinced that those culprits planted the brain rumor that killed him. "All that crunching did something to his head. Set off some bad cells. My ex used to say, if that the way you think, you're next?" Jo's pain goes way back, to the mysterious day her father took a canoe out on a lake and blasted himself out of this miserable world. Needless to say, it all messed with Jo's mind. What would she do to squint out just one clear memory of him? Maybe jump off a rock into the rapids! But life goes on.
When Monk runs into difficulty at work, and Jo is pressured to create the cake of her lifetime, their lives begin to unravel.
"Hotline Heaven" is a dark, lyrical comedy about a middle-age couple in love, whose pasts beat them down. But the message -- like the one that saved Jo five years ago -- is that life triumphs.
157 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 1998
5 people want to read
About the author
Frances Park
24 books28 followersI grew up in an era when the U.S. Census Bureau need only come to my family's house to get a total head count of Koreans in my ‘burb. That reality is often reflected in fourteen books by publishers big and small for readers young and old.
BLUE RICE (Vine Leaves Press/June 2024) is a timely tale of a young woman from northern Korea who takes what fate deals her following the Korean War, including her acclimation to 1960s America when her husband deserts her.
On the horizon is a children's book SUKA'S FARM (Albert Whitman/March 2025), a testament to a hungry Korean boy's desire to feed his family during the Japanese Occupation.
THE SUMMER MY SISTER WAS CLEOPATRA MOON (Heliotrope NYC/Sept 2023) is a revised and streamlined version of a novel originally published in 2000, long before the era of K-Pop and K-Dramas. A quarter century later, the Oscars have proven that stories about the Asian American experience have certainly come to light, and that audiences are receptive. That said, playing in my mind like vintage footage, I was always hoping that somehow, someday, I could bring the Moon family back to life, sisters Marcy and Cleo cruising around in that yellow Mustang on their way to Taco Town in the summer of '76. And here it is!
Other works include GRANDPA'S SCROLL (Albert Whitman/May 2023), my sixth co-authored children's book with sister Ginger, my includes my memoir THAT LONELY SPELL: STORIES OF FAMILY, FRIENDS & LOVE (Heliotrope NYC/2022) and CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE: THE TRUE STORY OF TWO SISTERS, TONS OF TREATS, AND THE LITTLE SHOP THAT COULD (Thomas Dunne/ 2011), Shorter works - stories and essays - have appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine, The Chicago Quarterly, The Massachusetts Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, The London Magazine, Pleaides, Spirituality & Health Magazine, OZY, Slice, Folio, Gulf Coast Journal, and Arts & Letters, to name a few. One work earned a spot on THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2017 Notable List.
More co-authored and highly-praised children's books include MY FREEDOM TRIP: A CHILD'S ESCAPE TO NORTH KOREA (Boyds Mills Press/1998), winner of The International Reading Association Award; THE ROYAL BEE (Boyds Mills Press/2000), winner of The Joan B. Sugarman Award; and GOOD-BYE, 382 SHIN DANG DONG (National Geographic Children’s Books/2002), described by Newsweek magazine as "the perfect all-American story".
I've been interviewed on 'Good Morning America', CNN, the Diane Rehm Show, Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and NPR.
When I'm not in writing mode, I'm at Chocolate Chocolate, a sweet boutique in Washington, DC breaking bonbons with customers. Books + Chocolate = A Dream Life!
Visit me at www.parksisters.com.
BLUE RICE (Vine Leaves Press/June 2024) is a timely tale of a young woman from northern Korea who takes what fate deals her following the Korean War, including her acclimation to 1960s America when her husband deserts her.
On the horizon is a children's book SUKA'S FARM (Albert Whitman/March 2025), a testament to a hungry Korean boy's desire to feed his family during the Japanese Occupation.
THE SUMMER MY SISTER WAS CLEOPATRA MOON (Heliotrope NYC/Sept 2023) is a revised and streamlined version of a novel originally published in 2000, long before the era of K-Pop and K-Dramas. A quarter century later, the Oscars have proven that stories about the Asian American experience have certainly come to light, and that audiences are receptive. That said, playing in my mind like vintage footage, I was always hoping that somehow, someday, I could bring the Moon family back to life, sisters Marcy and Cleo cruising around in that yellow Mustang on their way to Taco Town in the summer of '76. And here it is!
Other works include GRANDPA'S SCROLL (Albert Whitman/May 2023), my sixth co-authored children's book with sister Ginger, my includes my memoir THAT LONELY SPELL: STORIES OF FAMILY, FRIENDS & LOVE (Heliotrope NYC/2022) and CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE: THE TRUE STORY OF TWO SISTERS, TONS OF TREATS, AND THE LITTLE SHOP THAT COULD (Thomas Dunne/ 2011), Shorter works - stories and essays - have appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine, The Chicago Quarterly, The Massachusetts Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, The London Magazine, Pleaides, Spirituality & Health Magazine, OZY, Slice, Folio, Gulf Coast Journal, and Arts & Letters, to name a few. One work earned a spot on THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2017 Notable List.
More co-authored and highly-praised children's books include MY FREEDOM TRIP: A CHILD'S ESCAPE TO NORTH KOREA (Boyds Mills Press/1998), winner of The International Reading Association Award; THE ROYAL BEE (Boyds Mills Press/2000), winner of The Joan B. Sugarman Award; and GOOD-BYE, 382 SHIN DANG DONG (National Geographic Children’s Books/2002), described by Newsweek magazine as "the perfect all-American story".
I've been interviewed on 'Good Morning America', CNN, the Diane Rehm Show, Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and NPR.
When I'm not in writing mode, I'm at Chocolate Chocolate, a sweet boutique in Washington, DC breaking bonbons with customers. Books + Chocolate = A Dream Life!
Visit me at www.parksisters.com.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 18, 2018
Quiet and lovely. I came for the cake and stayed for the sweetness. Sometimes TOO sweet: language that on my less cynical days I’d indulge as poetry but usually have little patience for.
Still, here are my favorite lines:
“I’ve learned to live with my mother’s lack of love. I step over it like a grave I know is there but don’t want to think too deeply about. If I think too deeply I’m back in her house, praying she’ll love me enough to break down with the truth”
“He crisscrosses the county lines, then state lines, with coffee jitters, listening to old songs on the radio that make him want to pull over and puke up 48 years”.
“What’s past is present and what’s present is paralyzing “
Hotline Heaven was shelved under comedy, but it’s really not. It should be on a shelf classified as “whimsical depression” or “quirky melancholy”. It’s magical realism with not so much magic but lots of realism.
Still, here are my favorite lines:
“I’ve learned to live with my mother’s lack of love. I step over it like a grave I know is there but don’t want to think too deeply about. If I think too deeply I’m back in her house, praying she’ll love me enough to break down with the truth”
“He crisscrosses the county lines, then state lines, with coffee jitters, listening to old songs on the radio that make him want to pull over and puke up 48 years”.
“What’s past is present and what’s present is paralyzing “
Hotline Heaven was shelved under comedy, but it’s really not. It should be on a shelf classified as “whimsical depression” or “quirky melancholy”. It’s magical realism with not so much magic but lots of realism.
Displaying 1 of 1 review