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Novel set in Caprock, North Texas

30th November 2016

Old Buildings In North Texas, by Jen Waldo – novel set in Caprock, North Texas.

Olivia was a successful journalist in Dallas, but she had a cocaine habit that led to a heart attack and a criminal record. She is released into her mother’s care in Caprock, a town in the Texas Panhandle where nothing happens. Her mother controls every aspect of her life – it’s just like being a kid again. She also has a court appointed therapist and a court appointed probation officer ‘looking after’ her.

novel set in caprock north texasHer very pregnant, but unmarried, sister appears on the doorstep. Olivia and her sister, Chloe, are bored… and Olivia is encouraged by her therapist to find a hobby. She chooses ‘urbexing’ (urban exploration) and soon they are involved in the semi-legal activity of obtaining access to boarded up and derelict buildings. Semi-legal because they are not actually breaking and entering – just finding access routes (like an unlocked first floor window…). When ‘urbexing’ you are not supposed to remove anything, but temptation proves too much for Olivia. They remove some antique items from an old dilapidated mansion outside Caprock, which Olivia then sells online. And then (after the birth of Chloe’s baby) she moves up the illegal scale – forcing entry into some buildings and stealing valuable content. She has a nice little business going for her…

Meanwhile she is all the time dodging the obsessive presence of her mother, and working round the appointments with her therapist and probation officer – who just might not approve of the hobby she has found herself.

Old Buildings In North Texas is an amusingly written and well worked book – with many an interesting sideline. There is the relationship between Olivia and her therapist (an old school ‘friend’ who doesn’t want to know – professional business only, please), the 54 year old gay jeweller – always dressed as a macho cowboy – from whom Olivia works and who is her mother’s best friend and confidante, and Chloe’s adventures in tracking down the decidedly odd and distinctly controlling father who did not know of her existence until she approached him for money. It also has its serious side. Jen Waldo says that the Olivia character is based on a recovering addict friend of hers. The times at which Olivia wishes she could resume her relationship with candycaine, gutter glitter, wacky dust, rail, Blanca, and Mr Snow are frightenly real and a tad scary…

It is quite definitely a book that I found well worth reading.

Tony for the TripFiction team

You can connect with the author via her website.

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