“A devastating and rich exploration of trauma, art-making, love and the unmistakable hauntedness of what we cannot control, yet long to. I want everyone to read this book.”
–Chelsea Bieker, author of Godshot and Heartbroke
Inspired by real events—the story of a provocative photograph, the struggling artist who takes it, and its young and troubled subject…
TELL ME ONE THING
a debut novel
KERRI SCHLOTTMAN
ON SALE: January 31, 2023
An atmospheric debut novel that spans place and time, Kerri
Schlottman’s TELL ME ONE THING (Regal House
Publishing; January 31, 2023) examines power, privilege, and
the sacrifices one is willing to make to succeed. Against the
backdrop of a rural Pennsylvania trailer park, and the
complicated world of Manhattan during the AIDS epidemic, it
delves into New York City’s free-for-all grittiness while exposing a neglected slice of the struggling rust belt, traversing decades from the 1980s up to present day.
Outside a Pennsylvania motel, nine-year-old Lulu smokes a cigarette while sitting on the lap of a trucker. Recent art grad Quinn is passing through town and captures it. The photograph, later titled “Lulu & the Trucker,” launches Quinn’s career, escalating her from a starving artist to a renowned photographer. In a parallel life, Lulu struggles to survive a volatile home, growing up too quickly in an environment wrought with drug abuse and her mother’s prostitution.
Decades later, when Quinn has a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of Art and “Lulu & the Trucker” has sold at auction for a record-breaking amount, Lulu is surprised to find the troubling image of her young self in the newspaper. She attends an artist talk for the exhibition with one question in mind for Quinn: Why didn’t you help me all those years ago?
TELL ME ONE THING by Kerri Schlottman | Regal House Publishing | On-sale: January 31, 2023 ISBN: 9781646033027 | Trade Paperback Original | 9.99 US | 12.99 CAN | 216 Pages
ON SALE: January 31, 2023 PUBLICITY CONTACT: Laura Marie PR laura@lauramariepr.com
While writing, Kerri Schlottman—who has a background in art and writes from a place of authenticity— was inspired by Mary Ellen Mark’s famous 1990 photograph, “Amanda and Her Cousin Amy,” which depicts nine-year-old Amanda smoking a cigarette in a kiddie pool in rural North Carolina. Upon Mark's death in 2015, NPR interviewed Amanda and asked her why she allowed herself to be photographed. Her reply was: “I thought, ‘Hey, people will see me, I'll get attention, it will perhaps change things for me.’ I thought it might be a way to get out, but that was not the case.”
Weaving back and forth between Lulu’s and Quinn’s perspectives, TELL ME ONE THING explores life-shaping moments in each of their stories—doubt, love, pain, and ambition—and unknowingly links one to another through a fierce determination to better their circumstances.
Brimming with characters that won’t soon leave you, TELL ME ONE THING captures a portrait of two Americas by an exciting up-and-coming writer to watch.
New Yorker who works to support artists, performers, and writers in
creating new projects. Her fiction and essays have appeared in The
Dillydoun Review, Belle Ombre, Women Writers Women’s Books,
Muse Apprentice Guild, and The Furnace. She placed second in the
Dillydoun International Fiction Prize, has been longlisted for the
Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction, and was a 2021 University of New
Orleans Press Lab Prize semifinalist.
www.kerrischlottman.com
www.regalhousepublishing.com
#TELLMEONETHING
TELL ME ONE THING by Kerri Schlottman | Regal House Publishing | On-sale: January 31, 2023 ISBN: 9781646033027 | Trade Paperback Original | 9.99 US | 12.99 CAN | 216 Pages
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