Karene Horst

Moving men Karene Horst

Cathy knows if the police catch her with the body of her dead boyfriend, she will lose her seven-year-old son. And she will do anything to keep that from happening.

She knows she cannot call the police and beg for understanding. She knows the police will not listen to someone like her: an unemployed single mother subsisting on welfare checks in between dead-end jobs. She knows what the Law will do to her.

But what the hell is she going to do about that heavy freezer out in her garage?

In desperation, she picks up two hitchhikers whom she agrees to give a ride to a distant town farther south. First, however, they must help her move the freezer to somewhere, someplace no one will ever find.

The trauma of this horrific event spurs Cathy to revisit her past as she tries to understand how her life has taken this disastrous turn. She sifts through memories about her family, her lovers, and her friends as she drives across the Ozark countryside with the hitchhikers in search of a place to dump the freezer.

Set in the late 20th century before smartphones and the internet swamped our culture, this contemporary fiction explores the impact of alcoholism, mental illness, and economic disparity on working families. In communities where people struggle to feed and clothe themselves and their children, toxic relationships undermine every effort to cope.



Cathy only wants what most of us want: love, family, a home. But life just keeps getting in the way.

When Cathy stumbles upon these two strange men standing on the side of the road, she sees a sliver of hope that she, with her son Mitchell, will overcome this catastrophe.

She has no idea if they can help her ... or if they will only make everything so much worse.