My Debut Novel
Milksop is Evan Mulder’s coming-of-age story, both funny and sad, kind of like him. At one and the same time, it’s a tale of unrequited love and the story of how he meets the woman who will eventually become his wife.
In June 1979, he’s dumped in a farm laneway in Huron County, Ontario. A normally studious, math-loving 17-year-old, he’s unexpectedly dropped out of school. The result? His family have sent him for work therapy to a dairy farm north of the city where he lives with his intense Dutch-immigrant parents and overachieving siblings, Jeff and Annalise. Jeff, whose nickname for Evan is “Milksop,” has conspired with their father to land Evan at Niall and Connie Logan’s farm in hopes that eight weeks of country living and manual labour will fix him. If it doesn’t, he’s finished with school and condemned to begin the night shift at Cameron Confectionaries, where his dad’s a salesman.
Will country living and hard work transform Evan from an indecisive, cowardly milksop—or show him there are worse things to be?
Where to BUY Milksop
Milksop is now available widely for pre-order ahead of its May 23 release date: the day you can begin reading Milksop and celebrate becoming an honorary member of U-MAW–the United Milksops Association of the World!
Milksop is available in print and ebook directly from my publisher, Chicken House Press.
To buy Milksop locally within Canada, you can order it from an independent bookstore. With the link below to the Canadian Independent Booksellers Association, you can click the “Buy Local” button below “Where to Buy” to find bookstores near you.
In Canada, Moonshine Promises is also available from Indigo. Currently, only the ebook (Kobo) is listed at the Indigo website, but you should be able to pre-order a print copy of Milksop at your local store by mid-May. Stay tuned for an update.
At Amazon in both Canada and the US, Milksop is currently available for pre-order for Kindle, with print versions coming soon.
But wait! These aren’t all your choices. I mean, it’s crazy the choices you have! Here are some more:
Barnes & Noble (print and ebook)
Bookshop.org (paperback)
Books-a-Million (paperback)
Praise for Milksop!
“Who’d have thought that there could be a fresh take on the age-old tale of growing up, of finding oneself, of growing into oneself, of falling in love…? That is precisely the journey that Evan, the protagonist of this novel, takes. He is a clumsy city boy, the ‘milksop’ of the title, who is transplanted by his parents into the country only to discover what is good and right about this world, after believing that little of it could be true or possible. John Van Rys is a bold, honest and eloquent new voice in Canadian letters. We should welcome and celebrate his arrival.”
JOSEPH KERTES, founder of Humber College’s creative writing and comedy programs, winner of the Leacock Medal for Humour, and author of Winter Tulips, Gratitude, The Afterlife of Stars, and Last Impressions.
“Growing up on a farm in the 70s and 80s, I could totally relate to Milksop. It is well written and brought back so many memories. I highly recommend reading this book if you grew up on a farm.”
LARRY LINK, Linkhaven Farms (also my hay supplier and all around super guy)
“Tender and hilarious, Milksop follows a young man on a reluctant quest towards self-discovery within a beautiful but unrelenting pastoral mileu. Deposited at a dairy farm in the heat of summer, directionless Evan is given the opportunity to find himself through proximity to land and animals. Full of delightful characters, farming mishaps, and a relatable city-slicker narrator who finds himself out of his depth in the country, Van Rys’s debut novel is full of description so rich you can smell the hay and feel the rumble of the tractor while reading.
This book brought me back to growing up in farm country through its vivid descriptions of the scents, sights, textures and people that make farm life so challenging and rewarding.”
Melissa Kuipers, author of The Whole Beautiful World