Hollister McClane

Laurie Lisa's latest novel, Hollister McClane, is a captivating, fun, and lighthearted picaresque mixing crime fiction with a bit of good old-fashioned Southern charm. Hollister's adventures will keep you reading non-stop!

Hollister McClane is a small-town, southern Missouri, gorgeous (if she does say so herself) heroine who has a knack for accidentally robbing banks, a convenience store, and a possible drug cartel. She might inadvertently throw in a couple of grand theft autos, but truly, she wouldn't hurt a fly--not even when that Ruger falls into her lap.

Savvy and self-taught, eternally optimistic and zealously patriotic, Hollister walks, runs, hitchhikes, and drives from one chance encounter to another across America's heartland. After accidentally robbing her first bank dressed as Uncle Sam, Hollister sees her newfound life on the run as a matter of Fate. And it doesn't hurt that she is a genius at disguises (if she does say so herself).

Hollister always tries to do the right thing with her newfound bounty, but somehow, it keeps slipping through her fingers. Also, there are a few obstacles along the way: the law, the lovers, the three not-quite-ex-husbands, the babies, and always, world-weary Mama. When Hollister finally does use that gun, unfortunately, she's pointing it too close to home.

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FROM THE AUTHOR

Hollister McClane was the fourth of nine novels that I have written. It is my first picaresque novel and also happens to be the fourth of my books to publish. As a picaresque, Hollister McClane exhibits many of the genre's defining characteristics: comedy, sarcasm, first-person narration with an autobiographical and colloquial ease of telling, and a criminal (but likable) female protagonist on an episodic recounting of her adventures on the road.

I started to think about writing a picaresque novel many years ago while in grad school, after studying Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March (which I consider one of my all-time favorite books by one of my favorite authors) and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I did not write Hollister McClane with the thought that it would fit into one of the popular "mainstream" genres. Rather, I viewed Hollister McClane as my own somewhat roguish adventure in writing to fulfill my long-standing fascination with the picaresque genre. I fell in love with Hollister as she led me from adventure to adventure while writing the story, and I missed her after completing the book. I hope my readers find Hollister to be as endearing as I did.

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