DREAMS OF ARCADIA

by

Brian Porter

Contemporary Fiction

Publisher: Legacy Book Press

Date of Publication: June 27, 2023

Number of Pages: 222 pages

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Veterinarian Nate Holub takes a job in his father’s Texas hometown, wondering if a city boy has what it takes to be a country vet. As he struggles to adapt, Nate reconnects with his family and discovers that his father’s accidental death thirty years earlier was much more complicated than he realized.

Nate delves into the past, afraid of what he might find. He encounters a resentful cousin, a wary town patriarch, a reclusive uncle, a beguiling hidden garden, and a mysterious illness. Nate is drawn to the Holub family farm, where he seeks refuge in nature and tries desperately to reach Viola, his inscrutable grandmother. The farm is a place that haunts his memory, a place where dark secrets dwell.

Dreams of Arcadia is a touching portrait of an American family. It explores the enduring ties that hold us together and bind us to the land.

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These two paragraphs were deleted from Chapter 1 because I thought I had too many of Everett’s stories in the chapter.  – Brian Porter

“I do about 60% cattle, 30% dogs and cats, and the other 10% is horses, goats, pigs…you name it. I’ll look at anything. A few months ago, a woman called up and asked if she could bring in a snake. It was some type of exotic rat snake…named Curly, of all things. She told me Curly had stopped eating and didn’t move around much anymore. Before she got to the clinic, I searched the Internet for anything I could find on snake diseases. Hell, I wasn’t even sure how to examine a snake, so I was kind of nervous about it. So she brought it in, and when I opened the box, it stunk to high heaven. I reached down and touched it real carefully, and then I turned to her and said, ‘Ma’am, I think I have an answer for you.’ She looked surprised. I could tell she was amazed by my finely honed reptile diagnostic skills. And then I said, ‘I hate to tell you this, but Curly’s dead.’”

Everett looked at Nate and shook his head. “It must have been dead for at least a couple of days. That’s my first and only experience with snake medicine. There’s not much of a demand for it around here. If someone sees a snake, they usually run for a hoe or shotgun.”

Brian Porter lives in College Station, Texas, where he works as a veterinary pathologist. He previously worked in private veterinary practice and once taught high school chemistry. Dreams of Arcadia is his first novel.

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