Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Young Widower’s Handbook
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): McAllister, Thomas
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.tom.mcallister.ws/
CITY:
STATE: NJ
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.cla.temple.edu/english/faculty/thomas-mcallister/ *
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married.
EDUCATION:La Salle University, B.A., 2004; University of Iowa, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Temple University’s First Year Writing Program, associate professor. Barrelhouse, nonfiction editor. Book Fight podcast, co-host.
AWARDS:Philly Geek Award, Best Streaming Media Project, Book Fight podcast, 2015. The Best American Nonrequired Reading, “Things You’re Not Proud of,” 2015.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Tom McAllister is a short story writer and novelist. He is an associate professor at Temple University’s First Year Writing Program and is the nonfiction editor at online literary magazine Barrelhouse. Along with Mike Ingram, McAllister co-hosts Book Fight, a podcast focused on writers talking about books, for which they won a Philly Geek Award for Best Streaming Media Project in 2015.
McAllister grew up in Philadelphia. He received his B.A. from La Salle University in 2004 and his M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. McAllister and his wife live in southern New Jersey.
McAllister’s debut novel tells the story of 29-year-old Hunter Cady. Hunter leads an unfulfilled life. He has no goals and works a dead-end job at a car rental agency. The highlight of his life is his wife, Kait, who is motivated, accomplished, funny and beautiful. Hunter spends most of his time with Kait, planning the trips the two will one day take.
Hunter’s life becomes unravelled when Kait unexpectedly dies as the result of a ruptured fallopian tube from an ectopic pregnancy the two did not know she had. Nearly paralyzed with grief, Hunter does not know what do to. When Kait’s family arrives to collect her ashes, Hunter takes his wife’s remains and flees. On the trip, Hunter seeks to find a fitting final resting place for his wife’s ashes. During this time, the reader learns about their marriage as Hunter reflects back on their time together. He uses Facebook as a means to process his grief, posting about the trip as he meets odd and interesting characters.
Described by Rebecca Vnuk in Booklist as “at turns funny and touching,” the book documents Hunter’s humorous encounters while also expressing the sentimental process of grieving the death of a loved one. In Hunter’s adventures we meet his overly serious father and hippie mother. We also see him nearly lose Kait’s ashes twice. In one situation, Hunter takes the ashes to a Renaissance faire, where he helps a man search for his wife, a woman who had left him years ago. In another instance Hunter accidentally finds himself participating in a bachelorette party, where he does end up losing Kait’s ashes, but finds them again the next day.
The book bounces between plot and Hunter’s reflections on his and Kait’s marriage. Both through these reflections and his posts on Facebook, Hunter is able to recognize that being with Kait helped him to become a better person.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, February 1, 2017, Rebecca Vnuk, review of The Young Widower’s Handbook, p. 22.
Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2016, review of The Young Widower’s Handbook.
Library Journal, November 1, 2016, Kate Gray, review of The Young Widower’s Handbook, p. 77.
Publishers Weekly, February 22, 2010, review of Bury Me in My Jersey: A Memoir of My Father, Football, and Philly, p. 53; December 19, 2016, review of The Young Widower’s Handbook, p. 91.*
This is the page where I tell you who I am and how I got to the internet.
I'm the author of three books:
My first novel, "The Young Widower's Handbook" was published by Algonquin in February 2017. Publisher's Weekly called it "a remarkable debut." Learn more about it here.
My second novel, "How to Be Safe" is forthcoming in 2018 from Liveright Publishing. More details here
My memoir "Bury Me in My Jersey" was published by Villard in 2010. It's still available as an e-book.
My short stories and essays have been published widely, and my short story "Things You're Not Proud of" was included in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015. Here is a (probably incomplete) list of things I've written online:
Dollar Dog Day (fiction)
Trade Deadline (fiction)
Eight Scenes from the Life of a Professional Raven (fiction)
Acknowledgments (non-fiction)
Halloween Glossary D-H (non-fiction)
On the Way to the Killing Spree, The Shooter Stops for Pizza (fiction)
Podcasts and Literary Criticism (non-fiction)
The Least Authentic of All Experiences (non-fiction)
See You in A While (non-fiction)
What it Feels Like (fiction)
Hyperbolic Preening: The Desperate Lives of Sports Mascots (non-fiction)
Along with Mike Ingram, I co-host the Book Fight podcast, which started in April 2012 and posts new episodes every Monday. We try to make book discussions accessible, funny, and more interesting than a freshman lit seminar. It's fun. An iTunes reviewer says, "Listening to Tom and Mike feels like eavesdropping on the most interesting conversation at a party." In 2015, we won a Philly Geek Award for Best Streaming Media Project.
I also work as the nonfiction editor at the literary magazine and small press Barrelhouse. We publish online issues, print issues, and books, and run a ton of different readings, conferences, and other community events. I'm lucky to be able to work with a group of talented, generous, creative, weirdos who I think of as a second family. This is what they look like when they're dancing to music played by a minion pinata, which they named after me.
I grew up in Philadelphia and graduated from La Salle University in 2004. I received an MFA from the University of Iowa, and I'm an Associate Professor in Temple University's First Year Writing Program.
I live in South Jersey now, just outside of Philly with my wife, who is very good and surely hates how many pictures of her are on this website.
The best way to find out what I'm doing most days is to follow me on Twitter.
If you're interested in having me speak at your event, talk to your class, or participate in your writing conference, please contact me at tom (at) mcallister (dot) ws.
The Young Widower's Handbook
Rebecca Vnuk
Booklist.
113.11 (Feb. 1, 2017): p22.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
The Young Widower's Handbook.
By Tom McAllister.
Feb. 2017. 288p. Algonquin, $25.95 (9781616204747).
Hunter Cady has always been a bit ... unfocused. He's 29, and his singular accomplishment so far has been to marry the
lovely Kait, who is clever, confident, and full of direction. When Kait dies unexpectedly, Hunter is left completely
unmoored. Then, after Kait's boorish family descends and demands her remains, Hunter doesn't know what else to do
except run away. With the aid of the $750,000 life-insurance policy Kait was smart enough to take out, Hunter embarks,
with Kait's ashes as his traveling companion, on a crazy cross-country trip, documenting their adventures on Facebook.
Among other things, he almost loses her at a Renaissance faire; does lose her (but recovers her the next day) when he's
unwittingly roped into a bachelorette party; and gives his father, Jack, the slip, after Jack tracks him down at a hotel in
Oklahoma. McAllister's debut novel is at turns funny and touching, particularly in the vignettes sandwiched between
the narrative, which delve into Hunter's thoughts and feelings about his marriage and his wife. Expect comparisons to
Jonathan Tropper and Nick Hornby.--Rebecca Vnuk
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Vnuk, Rebecca. "The Young Widower's Handbook." Booklist, 1 Feb. 2017, p. 22. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA481244769&it=r&asid=9c47115c868da63bd4bab986511a7c27.
Accessed 30 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A481244769
9/30/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1506817411449 2/5
The Young Widower's Handbook
Publishers Weekly.
263.52 (Dec. 19, 2016): p91.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Young Widower's Handbook
Tom McAllister. Algonquin, $25.95 (288p) ISBN 978-1-61620-474-7
McAllister writes with heartfelt emotion about the sudden death of a spouse in this remarkable debut novel. Hunter
Cady, an immature 29--his life filled with such attempts at self-improvement as "the Month of No Hot Dogs," and "the
Month of Being Romantic"--spends an inordinate amount of time with his wife, Kait, planning for all the wonderful
trips they will someday take. He has the shock of his life when she suddenly dies because of a ruptured fallopian tube
from an ectopic pregnancy that they had no knowledge of. Nearly catatonic with grief, he finally takes his wife's' ashes
with him on the road trip they never took. Along the way readers learn about Hunter's no-nonsense father and New Age
mother. He has a comical and nearly tragic experience at a renaissance fair, and at one point he joins an older man in
search of the wife who left him years ago. Hunter's poignant realizations about what his wife meant to him,
intermingled with his humorous and spot-on views of the people and places he encounters, as well as how he uses
social media to grieve, bring him to the fitting conclusion that even beyond the grave, Kait helps him become the man
he always wanted to be for her. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"The Young Widower's Handbook." Publishers Weekly, 19 Dec. 2016, p. 91. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475324254&it=r&asid=6cba39831342cc9674e09750c44b7713.
Accessed 30 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475324254
9/30/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1506817411449 3/5
McAllister, Tom: THE YOUNG WIDOWER'S
HANDBOOK
Kirkus Reviews.
(Nov. 1, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
McAllister, Tom THE YOUNG WIDOWER'S HANDBOOK Algonquin (Adult Fiction) $25.95 2, 17 ISBN: 978-1-
61620-474-7
Twenty-nine-year-old Hunter Cady, who describes himself as "actually about fifteen when it comes to real life
experience," finds in Kait, his wife, a person who "anchored him to the world."They are in love and finding their way in
the world together. And then she's dead. This novel is the story of Hunter's first months without Kait. In shock and
unable to deal with his grief, Hunter takes Kait's ashes on a road trip, alarming his parents and angering Kait's mother
and brothers. He has little plan, and what plan he has goes awry several times. He meets people and sometimes that
goes really poorly, sometimes really well. It's darkly humorous either way. The chapters alternate between secondperson
narrative ("When you dream you never see her. You only dream about being lost in a cavernous house and
searching for her") and third-person ("The only thing in his life he'd ever fully committed to was loving her, which he
tried to demonstrate via the completion of what some people call the little things."). This can be jarring but seems in
line with the chaotic emotions Hunter is experiencing. The story resolves nicely without tying up every loose end,
leaving room for readers to think about what Hunter's life will be like. A quirky, well-told fiction debut from McAllister
(Bury Me in My Jersey: A Memoir of My Father, Football, and Philly, 2010) that doesn't cover any new ground in
exploring the sudden loss of a spouse but covers it differently.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"McAllister, Tom: THE YOUNG WIDOWER'S HANDBOOK." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Nov. 2016. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA468388941&it=r&asid=9fe90922f024aabe3612621a3f516518.
Accessed 30 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A468388941
9/30/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1506817411449 4/5
McAllister, Tom. The Young Widower's
Handbook
Kate Gray
Library Journal.
141.18 (Nov. 1, 2016): p77.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
McAllister, Tom. The Young Widower's Handbook. Algonquin. Feb. 2017. 288p. ISBN 9781616204747. $25.95; ebk.
ISBN 9781616206543. F
Acclaimed nonfiction writer and editor of Barrelhouse magazine McAllister's first novel features the socially awkward
twentysomething Hunter, who lives with his parents and works a dead-end job at a car rental agency until he meets the
beautiful, funny, organized Kaitlyn Cady, who helps him get his life in order. After only a few years of blissful
matrimony, she drops dead. As if this wasn't bad enough, it was an ectopic pregnancy that killed her. Hunter deals with
the extended family and funeral in the ways you would expect a sarcastic man-child to, and when they ask to scatter her
ashes, he instead disappears with them. He drives around the country looking for a suitable final resting place for iris
young bride. On his journey he flashes back to scenes from their marriage. The narration alternates pointlessly among
second and third person, and the characters are never given enough depth for you really to feel for them. The strange
people Hunter runs into on his road trip provide brief humor in an otherwise overly sentimental novel. VERDICT
While this work may be of interest to readers who like deep studies of marriages and grief, others may find it best
suited for a Lifetime movie adaptation. [See Prepub Alert, 8/8/16.]--Kate Gray, Boston P.L., MA
Gray, Kate
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Gray, Kate. "McAllister, Tom. The Young Widower's Handbook." Library Journal, 1 Nov. 2016, p. 77+. General
OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA467830346&it=r&asid=31bc48860c2643acd622bb650ae5e1a9.
Accessed 30 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A467830346
9/30/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1506817411449 5/5
Bury Me in My Jersey: A Memoir of My Father,
Football, and Philly
Publishers Weekly.
257.8 (Feb. 22, 2010): p53.
COPYRIGHT 2010 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Bury Me in My Jersey: A Memoir of My Father, Football, and Philly
Tom McAllister. Villard, $22 (256p) ISBN 978-0-345-51651-0
More than a family memoir, this debut work by McAllister, a lecturer in the English department at Temple University,
reads like a feverish coming-of-age tale of a gridiron groupie known as a "Philly fanatic," complete with endearing
childhood and college flashbacks. Many devotees of the Philadelphia Eagles football team will recognize themselves in
McAllister, starting with the author and his sport-obsessed father sitting in their game-day uniforms during the telecasts,
comparing notes on the players and contests, and enjoying the stadium melees that caused management to install
holding cells in the ball park. Although the author questions how much of his character he owes to his family or the
zeal of the city, he writes that Philly fans are the greatest in the NFL, even if they sometimes get crazy. This is great
reading for all who have shared a father-son kinship, football zanies, and the raw sporting soul of Philly. (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Bury Me in My Jersey: A Memoir of My Father, Football, and Philly." Publishers Weekly, 22 Feb. 2010, p. 53.
General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA219832064&it=r&asid=ade09927cccd9651c771c75cbfcbda82.
Accessed 30 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A219832064