Friday Freebie: Panorama City by Antoine Wilson

Congratulations to JoeAnn Hart, the winner of last week's Friday Freebie(s): The Dark Rose by Erin Kelly, Kings of Colorado by David E. Hilton, A Young Wife by Pam Lewis, and Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane.

This week's book giveaway is Panorama City, the new novel by Antoine Wilson from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  Antoine is this week's guest at The Quivering Pen's "My First Time" series and you can click here to read all about what it was like to open a box full of copies of his first novel, The Interloper.  Panorama City is a fresh and funny novel that should already be near the top of your bookstore shopping list.  Here's the jacket copy to tell you why you should read this novel:

Oppen Porter, a self-described “slow absorber,” thinks he’s dying. He’s not, but from his hospital bed, he unspools into a cassette recorder a tale of self-determination, from village idiot to man of the world, for the benefit of his unborn son. Written in an astonishingly charming and wise voice, Panorama City traces forty days and nights navigating the fast food joints, storefront churches, and home-office psychologists of the San Fernando Valley. Ping-ponging between his watchful and sharp-tongued aunt and an outlaw philosopher with the face "of a newly hatched crocodile," Oppen finds himself constantly in the sights of people who believe that their way is the only way for him.

The book has also drawn accolades from writers like Stewart O'Nan (The Odds), who says: "Oppen Porter is an American original, an innocent who believes he's bursting with wisdom.  The funniest thing is that, despite himself, he actually is. Though it takes place in down-at-heel Panorama City with its crappy burger franchises and abandoned shopping carts, The World According to Oppen is full of wonders and mysteries."  Pulitzer Prize winning author Paul Harding (Tinkers) also applauded the novel: "God bless Oppen Porter!  His innocence and lack of pretense are our good fortune and our delight.  Under his observation, our follies and schemes and manias go up in the brightest, funniest, heartrending flames.  This is precisely (and artfully) because he does not judge them.  Panorama City is charming and absurd, very funny and, best of all, humane through and through."

If you'd like a chance at winning a copy of Panorama City, all you have to do is email your name and mailing address to thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line.  One entry per person, please.  Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on Oct. 4—at which time I'll draw the winning name.  I'll announce the lucky reader on Oct. 5.  If you'd like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week Quivering Pen newsletter, simply add the words "Sign me up for the newsletter" in the body of your email.  Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning?  Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter.  Once you've done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying "I've shared" and I'll put your name in the hat twice.