Description
A Jericho’s Cobble Miscellany
by Tom Shachtman
ISBN: 978-1-963695-57-1 paperback $22.95
ISBN: 978-1-963695-58-8 ebook $9.99
April 21, 2026
An invitingly varied and intimate look at what makes a small town tick.—Kirkus Reviews
Praise for A Jericho’s Cobble Miscellany by Tom Shachtman:
Shachtman’s literary novel chronicles life in a humble New England village, the fictional town of Jericho’s Cobble, a rural place though not a remote one. From a babysitter’s diary to the thoughts of an abandoned barn to a guitarist looking to make a go at the big time, the fun comes from seeing what each new perspective will reveal. Surprises abound. An invitingly varied and intimate look at what makes a small town tick. —Kirkus Reviews
Adults and young adults will enjoy reading A Jericho’s Cobble Miscellany. Through poems, plays, diary entries, newspaper articles, dialogues, and narratives, the book reveals a rural community’s history and people—alive and dead, and their gossip, activities, successes, and struggles. The short chapters allow readings in one sitting and beg readers’ reflections on their own lives. Along the way, there are also life lessons. “It is not [. . .] having had significant achievements [. . .] it is existing in a manner that touches others in positive ways and imparts to them an indelible sense of having had direct interaction with a unique and very interesting specimen of humanity who has enriched their lives” (344).—Patti Kidd, Reedsy Discovery
A patchwork quilt, stitched from voices, artifacts, and memories. It’s messy and alive, much like the New England hamlet it captures. I found myself laughing at one passage and then feeling the weight of grief a page later. A Jericho’s Cobble Miscellany is about what it feels like to live in the shadow of history while stumbling through the present. I would recommend it to readers who want to sink into the rhythm of a small town that is both ordinary and mythic. If you’re willing to wander, to let yourself be surprised, you’ll find something touching here.—Literary Titan
I loved it. Rich in detail, every turned page a surprise, the different voices animate and inanimate (I got a special kick out of “Lament for an Upright”), the vivid imagination, and much more.—John G. Ryden, Director Emeritus, The Yale University Press
I really love it … The orchestra of voices, alive and dead, works very well in evoking the feeling of place, the history of it, the complexity. It is powerfully nostalgic for me but also feels true to how layered a place it is. I especially love the use of signs, epitaphs, markers, newspapers, transcripts, to evoke the whole community, and the richness of each part of the town. The form is experimental, and I can sense the complexity in that. But it hangs together well, and I feel curious and connected all the way through. It is the very movement between forms that keeps me reading. Each of the voices feels fully realized and fleshed out, even when brief. And the cumulative effect is that of a chorus, each holding a part of the story.—Eiren Caffall, 2023 Whiting Prize winner and author, The Mourner’s Bestiary, and All the Water In The World.
Praise for Tom Shachtman’s The Memoir of the Minotaur
A romping confessional riff on the classic tale, a portrait of the artist as a young bull. Shachtman’s rollicking prose weaves mythology into a gripping yarn and gives antiquity’s voiceless celebrity monster a soaring human heart.—Charles Graeber, NYT bestselling author of The Good Nurse and The Breakthrough
Seldom have I written a review in which I can quiet the voice of the critic while losing myself in the story. As I read The Memoir of the Minotaur, that critical voice was very quiet; I am not exaggerating when I say the prose is so nearly flawless that we may as well call it perfect. There is not one phrase that has not been carefully selected and evaluated. Shachtman is a word-master.—Five-star Reedsy review
Praise for Tom Shachtman’s Echoes, or The Insistence of Memory
“Ell’s own searching identity merges with that of her rediscovered Warrior Princess as the novel moves beyond its characters to explore how our notions of history and memory are comprised of an infinity of fragments that interrelate in many ways.”—Kenneth Knoespel, poet and professor emeritus in history and literature, Georgia Tech
Tom Shachtman has published forty books, most recently Echoes, or The Insistence of Memory, and The Memoir of the Minotaur. His histories include The Day America Crashed, Skyscraper Dreams, Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold, and The Founding Fortunes; his social analyses, Rumspringa and The Inarticulate Society; the classic coffee table book, The Most Beautiful Villages of New England; and an eclectic trilogy of short novels about sea lions, Beachmaster, Wavebender, and Driftwhistler. His award-winning documentaries have aired on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and BBC. He holds degrees in experimental psychology and in drama and has taught writing at NYU and lectured at Harvard, Georgia Tech, the Library of Congress, Stanford, and other institutions.
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