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The Fireball Brothers
In 1959, two teenage brothers in rural Alabama are swimming in a pond when a fireball falls from the sky and lands in the water near them. When they come out, they are fused together, but nobody can figure out the cause. A doctor in New Orleans claims he can help them. To raise money for the surgery, they travel throughout the Southeast playing music. A wily reporter from Tupelo named Munford Coldwater follows their story as they meet snake oil salesmen and carnival barkers who try to take advantage of them. Filled with atmospheric music and setting, this novel mixes love, family, race, and political intrigue.
208 pages, Paperback
Published April 30, 2019
About the author
M. David Hornbuckle
11 books12 followersM. David Hornbuckle is from Birmingham, Alabama. His most recent novel is The Fireball Brothers (Livingston Press, 2019). He is founding editor of the literary journal Steel Toe Review.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 2, 2019
M. David Hornbuckle's new novel, The Fireball Brothers is a strange, familiar, beautiful and moving story. This is a brothers-literally-bonded story, this road trip tale that flirts with music, science fiction and mystery, which I simply couldn’t put down.
When a fireball lands in the rural pond where they’re swimming after a hard day weeding the cotton, two brothers become fused together, and just like Robert and Wally MacIntosh, Hornbuckle grabs his reader, and they can’t let go.
Set in West Alabama in the late 1950’s, our young heroes cover the southeast from Nashville to Mobile, from New Orleans to Georgia as street performers, meeting reporter Munford Coldwater, a strange surgeon, carnies and swindlers, as they try to earn the money for a separation surgery.
Thick with southern space and sensitivity, weighted with a farmer’s stoicism, peppered with strange beings, heart-rending with love and music, disabled, yet set free through tragedy—this novel’s dry mystery and humor is incredibly compelling. So compelling, the reader’s one regret is that it ends. I found myself left with a deep desire to remain in the world of Robert and Wally a little longer.
When a fireball lands in the rural pond where they’re swimming after a hard day weeding the cotton, two brothers become fused together, and just like Robert and Wally MacIntosh, Hornbuckle grabs his reader, and they can’t let go.
Set in West Alabama in the late 1950’s, our young heroes cover the southeast from Nashville to Mobile, from New Orleans to Georgia as street performers, meeting reporter Munford Coldwater, a strange surgeon, carnies and swindlers, as they try to earn the money for a separation surgery.
Thick with southern space and sensitivity, weighted with a farmer’s stoicism, peppered with strange beings, heart-rending with love and music, disabled, yet set free through tragedy—this novel’s dry mystery and humor is incredibly compelling. So compelling, the reader’s one regret is that it ends. I found myself left with a deep desire to remain in the world of Robert and Wally a little longer.
September 7, 2020
The Fireball Brothers is a coming-of-age story set in 1960s Alabama. It's clear that this isn't your typical '60s Deep South novel, with several fantastic elements entering the story beginning on the first page. A fireball inexplicably fuses two brothers together, and the majority of the book is how the brothers and their family cope with this strange turn that their lives have taken. As the brothers and their family struggle to make ends meet and find a way to move on, other inexplicable happenings are happening in the background of the story.
The Fireball Brothers is a real page-turner, primarily because of the relationship between the brothers Robert and Wally. Having their lives turned upside down and seeing what that does to their relationship with each other and with their parents was probably the best part of the novel. I will say that, although I did enjoy some of the other random fantasy elements thrown into the book, I wish I had more context and explanation about how or why those things happen, though I suspect that those elements are there mostly for setting and flavor. Still, I felt like I wanted more at the end of the story.
If you enjoy storytelling similar to Twin Peaks, then you'll love this oddball yet moving novel.
P.S. This book also has an excellent cover, and I'm definitely not saying that just because my sister designed it!
The Fireball Brothers is a real page-turner, primarily because of the relationship between the brothers Robert and Wally. Having their lives turned upside down and seeing what that does to their relationship with each other and with their parents was probably the best part of the novel. I will say that, although I did enjoy some of the other random fantasy elements thrown into the book, I wish I had more context and explanation about how or why those things happen, though I suspect that those elements are there mostly for setting and flavor. Still, I felt like I wanted more at the end of the story.
If you enjoy storytelling similar to Twin Peaks, then you'll love this oddball yet moving novel.
P.S. This book also has an excellent cover, and I'm definitely not saying that just because my sister designed it!
May 10, 2019
While The Fireball Brothers’ promotional hype promised ‘An entertaining and informative trek through Southern Americana, including race relations, jazz, rock and roll, con-artists, the Red Scare, and the just blooming space race,’ the author says he intended to pen ‘a comic novel… that involves space aliens and werewolves.’ (Okay, I left a little bit out of that second quote.) Proving once again that we readers should trust neither the author nor his publicist, there was in fact only one werewolf mentioned anywhere in this story.
All the rest of the material foretold in the promo was well and truly delivered, with gravy, in an unlikely tale of possession, obsession, infidelity, social isolation, religion, revenge and other family matters so true to time and place that you find yourself wiping red dust from your face and tipping your head to dodge the draping clusters of Spanish moss.
Most novels I simply read and pass along to the Library Auxiliary for recycling. This insightful, creative work by Mr. Hornbuckle will stay in my personal collection (providing the Missus doesn’t steal it for hers).
All the rest of the material foretold in the promo was well and truly delivered, with gravy, in an unlikely tale of possession, obsession, infidelity, social isolation, religion, revenge and other family matters so true to time and place that you find yourself wiping red dust from your face and tipping your head to dodge the draping clusters of Spanish moss.
Most novels I simply read and pass along to the Library Auxiliary for recycling. This insightful, creative work by Mr. Hornbuckle will stay in my personal collection (providing the Missus doesn’t steal it for hers).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews