Decanter Press Releases New Literary Novel by Award-Winning Author Jenni Wiltz

    PILOT HILL, CA, January 26, 2015 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The latest release from author Jenni Wiltz is a literary novel aimed at fans of contemporary family drama. In The Red Road, honor student Emma West must decide whether to focus on her academic future...or risk everything to avenge the near-murder of her father by a gang member.

The book portrays a rising tide of uncertainty about the future of the American Dream. "I wrote the first draft in 2012," says Wiltz, "after finishing grad school and finding myself with a mountain of debt and no job prospects. My dad and sister were unemployed, too, and my parents were paying more than they could afford for health insurance. I wondered if this was the turning point, the end of things always getting better. I didn't see a way out."

Wiltz spent two years revising the book, watching as headlines seemed to mirror the sentiments of her novel's characters. In September of 2014, the American Values Survey revealed that nearly half of those who once believed in the American Dream don't believe in it any longer. In the novel, 16-year-old Emma is assigned a paper on F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic, The Great Gatsby. She looks at her family's sinking fortunes and wonders whether the American Dream is already dead. Throughout the novel, pieces of that dream crumble around the West family as they confront real-world issues including unemployment, the cost of health insurance and college tuition, the tremendous pressure on college-prep teens to excel, and guns in school.

The novel's setting, Malo Verde, is a stand-in for Wiltz's hometown of Salinas, California. The city has a history of gang violence. In 1994, when Wiltz was the protagonist's age, Salinas experienced a then-record 24 homicides. "I was just a bystander," Wiltz says. "But one of my high school teachers was shot on campus after school. The atmosphere of fear and uncertainty affected everyone. As a writer, you never forget these things."

With this novel, Wiltz hopes she's created a character that's as hard to forget - and with good reason. "It's easy to think that smart kids like Emma have everything worked out," she says, "but they're often struggling just as much as the kids who act out. They try not to show it, and that only makes their lives harder. As a real kid, this is a terrible feeling. As a writer, it all becomes material for the next story."

The Red Road is the first release from Decanter Press, available in digital and paperback formats at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and Google Play. For more information, including buy links and sample chapters, visit the author's website at http://jenniwiltz.com/project/the-red-road/.

About the Author

Jenni Wiltz has won national writing awards for creative nonfiction and romantic suspense, including a 2011 Romance Writers of America Kiss of Death Chapter's Daphne du Maurier Award. Her short fiction has appeared in The Portland Review, Gargoyle, and the Sacramento News & Review. She holds bachelor's degrees in English and history from UC Davis, and a Master's in Creative Writing from Sacramento State. Visit http://JenniWiltz.com/about for her complete bio and publications list.

Decanter Press publishes fiction and non-fiction. Founded in 2014, it is headquartered in Pilot Hill, California. Visit http://DecanterPress.com for more information.

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