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THE GOLDEN SEASON

Madeline Kay Sneed

How do you love a place that doesn't love you back?

Emilia "Emmy" Quinn is West Texas through and through: she loves the land, she loves her hometown, she loves football - both professional and her town's high school team, the Steinbeck 'Stangs. She also knows she's a lesbian, and in her Southern Baptist evangelical community, that's going to be an issue, both for Emmy and her amicably separated parents, Lucy and Steve. After a disastrous conversation with her dad, Emmy meets Cameron, a whip-smart grad student from Massachusetts with bright eyes and a cute undercut - who hates everything Texas. But Texas is in Emmy's blood. Can she build a future with someone who can't accept the things that make Emmy who she is? Steve Quinn has just been offered his dream job as head coach of the struggling 'Stangs. The board feels he has what it takes to win them a state championship for the first time - but the board's CEO tells him he shouldn't accept the position if he's got any skeletons in his closet. Steve is still wrestling with Emmy's coming out: he knows he didn't handle it well, but he just can't reconcile it with his faith and head coach is everything he's ever wanted. How can God ask him to choose between his dreams and his own daughter? This lush, gorgeously written debut is a love letter to the places we call home and asks how we grapple with a complicated love for people and places that might not love us back - at least, not for who we really are. THE GOLDEN SEASON is a powerful examination of faith, queerness and the deep-seated bonds of family, and heralds the arrival of a striking new voice in fiction. Madeline Kay Sneed holds a BA in English Literature from Baylor University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. A native Texan, she often writes about the idiosyncrasies and landscapes found in the Lone Star State, queerness, faith, and relationships. When she's not writing, Madeline enjoys curating the perfect, no shuffle Spotify playlist.

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Book Published 2022-05-31 by Graydon House

Comments

Madeline Kay Sneed has written a "Friday Night Lights" for a new generation, a heartfelt story of finding yourself, coming out, and coming home. Emmy Quinn and her dad Steve both love football, Texas, and their Southern Baptist church, but when Emmy tells Steve she's gay, he sends her away - maybe forever. A tender, bighearted exploration of family, first love, and faith, with a gorgeously evoked west Texas landscape as backdrop.

Madeline Sneed's debut novel is a breathtaking rise-and- cheer touchdown. It's about growing up, coming out, and standing tough for what your heart knows is true, but it's also a tender, magnanimous love letter to a place where family, faith, and football are the holy trinity and wildflowers bloom for miles under an endless blue sky. I wish I could read it for the first time all over again.

In her debut, Texan novelist Sneed takes themes of football and religion to flip readers' expectations on their heads and show what love can do to change - or solidify - a person and even a place... Ultimately, those Emmy least expects to show love are the ones who give her the most comfort. The changing seasons make a perfect backdrop for this timeless story of family, acceptance, and love.