Longlisted for the National Book Award
An extraordinary and unforgettable short story collection about community, home, betrayal, and forgiveness—from a writer whose “spellbinding, buoyant”* storytelling will break your heart as it tends to the wounds.
*Texas Monthly
In Holler, Child’s eleven brilliant stories, LaToya Watkins presses at the bruises of guilt, love, and circumstance. Each story introduces us to a character irrevocably shaped by place and reaching toward something—hope, reconciliation, freedom.
In “Cutting Horse,” the appearance of a horse in a man’s suburban backyard places a former horse breeder in trouble with the police. In “Holler, Child,” a mother is forced into an impossible position when her son gets in a kind of trouble she knows too well from the other side. And “Time After” shows us the unshakable bonds of family as a sister journeys to find her estranged brother—the one who saved her many times over.
Throughout Holler, Child, we see love lost and gained, and grief turned to hope. Much like LaToya Watkins’s acclaimed debut novel, Perish, this collection peers deeply into lives of women and men experiencing intimate and magnificent reckonings—exploring how race, power, and inequality map on the individual, and demonstrating the mythic proportions of everyday life.
Genre: Literary Fiction
An extraordinary and unforgettable short story collection about community, home, betrayal, and forgiveness—from a writer whose “spellbinding, buoyant”* storytelling will break your heart as it tends to the wounds.
*Texas Monthly
In Holler, Child’s eleven brilliant stories, LaToya Watkins presses at the bruises of guilt, love, and circumstance. Each story introduces us to a character irrevocably shaped by place and reaching toward something—hope, reconciliation, freedom.
In “Cutting Horse,” the appearance of a horse in a man’s suburban backyard places a former horse breeder in trouble with the police. In “Holler, Child,” a mother is forced into an impossible position when her son gets in a kind of trouble she knows too well from the other side. And “Time After” shows us the unshakable bonds of family as a sister journeys to find her estranged brother—the one who saved her many times over.
Throughout Holler, Child, we see love lost and gained, and grief turned to hope. Much like LaToya Watkins’s acclaimed debut novel, Perish, this collection peers deeply into lives of women and men experiencing intimate and magnificent reckonings—exploring how race, power, and inequality map on the individual, and demonstrating the mythic proportions of everyday life.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"With her debut book Perish, LaToya Watkins proved herself to be a masterful novelist right out of the gate. Now, with Holler, Child, Watkins shows herself to be a master of the short story as well. Each of these gorgeous, note-perfect stories packs the full-bodied punch of a novel, but with an economy and compression that are nothing short of miraculous. How does she do it? I don't know, but what I do know is that I very much want her to keep doing it." - Ben Fountain
"Holler, Child forced me to stop everything I was doing and surrender to its stories - richly turbulent with faith, violence, sorrow, reckoning, and exquisite tenderness. LaToya Watkins weaves together character and place with a poetry that evokes Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. A heart-stopping collection." - Cristina García
"LaToya Watkins is a singular and fearless storyteller. She writes masterfully about moments of terrible, impossible choice, when everything that makes life worth living is on the line. These are intimate, richly textured portraits of West Texas life, full of longing and tenderness, inevitably tethered to betrayal and heartache. Every story in Holler, Child will confront you - heart, mind, and soul - and hold you, in its deep beauty. You won't be the same after reading this extraordinary book!" - Jean Chen Ho
"Holler, Child is a triumph of storytelling. With compassion, urgency, and exhilarating craft, Watkins plunges headlong into the voices, hearts, and minds of these unforgettable characters. This collection is outstanding - fearless, timely, and beautifully layered." - Kimberly King Parsons
"Every story, every character, every line of LaToya Watkins's Holler, Child is a revelation. But it's the devastating voices of her characters that linger most. I got lost, in a good way, in these pages, in the complex, intimate worlds Watkins conjures so beautifully. Alluring, intense, and utterly original, this collection is a treasure!" - Deesha Philyaw
"Holler, Child forced me to stop everything I was doing and surrender to its stories - richly turbulent with faith, violence, sorrow, reckoning, and exquisite tenderness. LaToya Watkins weaves together character and place with a poetry that evokes Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. A heart-stopping collection." - Cristina García
"LaToya Watkins is a singular and fearless storyteller. She writes masterfully about moments of terrible, impossible choice, when everything that makes life worth living is on the line. These are intimate, richly textured portraits of West Texas life, full of longing and tenderness, inevitably tethered to betrayal and heartache. Every story in Holler, Child will confront you - heart, mind, and soul - and hold you, in its deep beauty. You won't be the same after reading this extraordinary book!" - Jean Chen Ho
"Holler, Child is a triumph of storytelling. With compassion, urgency, and exhilarating craft, Watkins plunges headlong into the voices, hearts, and minds of these unforgettable characters. This collection is outstanding - fearless, timely, and beautifully layered." - Kimberly King Parsons
"Every story, every character, every line of LaToya Watkins's Holler, Child is a revelation. But it's the devastating voices of her characters that linger most. I got lost, in a good way, in these pages, in the complex, intimate worlds Watkins conjures so beautifully. Alluring, intense, and utterly original, this collection is a treasure!" - Deesha Philyaw
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