Everyone Worth Knowing
A remarried man dreams of his dead wife. A widowed preacher seeks out guilt and inspiration in a brothel. A man who refuses to wear a mask in the spring of 2020 faces the consequences of his choice. Through the eyes of these and other flawed men, Jeff Richards explores childhood, parenthood, love, life, and toxic masculinity.
The men in these stories struggle in relationships and mourn the loves of their past as they search for meaning. Often hoping to find clarity through work, they are instead left questioning their preconceived ideas of what being a man truly means.
Approaching his flawed characters without judgment in these tightly written stories, Richards shows men who have brief violent urges against themselves and others. They drink too much. They have crushes and get divorced and watch their lives fall apart. And, finally, they attempt to overcome their directionless yearning and shame to understand their place in society.
Circuit Breaker Books
June 2021
Praise for Everyone Worth Knowing
“Jeff Richards has presented us with a cavalcade of lonely laughable losers. Most of the men in these 17 stories are ruined by circumstance, parental units, lovers, bullies, or disastrous decisions. Others are Toxic Masculinity squared. The women are stronger, wiser, and better off alone. Part train wreck, part sinking of the Titanic, you can’t stop watching their decline and fall.”
~ Richard Peabody, ed. Gargoyle Magazine
“Everyone Worth Knowing takes a hard look at the down-and-out, the depressed, the dilapidated, and the destitute. In these seventeen stories, we meet men broken by their own hardness, turned upside down by their own self-destruction, their own misguided efforts to seem unbreakable. What Jeff Richards offers us is a raw and unflinching collection that asks us to see the ugly truth about how some men are and how, despite that, there might just be one small sliver of a thing inside them that makes them worthy of something like redemption.”
~ Jon Chopan, author of Veterans Crisis Hotline
“Such a wealth of characters in so many very different circumstances — Everyone Worth Knowing covers a lot of ground. Stories like “Fine Art” are absolute diamonds, but all of these tales resonate, reflecting on the broken and the broken-hearted. They show people dealing with what life has dealt them in the best way that they can. Jeff Richards paints vivid pictures, rich in person and place. These stories will get to you — guaranteed.”
~ Pierce Koslosky, Jr. author of A Week at Surfside Beach