The Seven Stages of Middle-Class Life: An American Fable - Softcover

Denton, Dan

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798995401315

Publisher: Roadside Press, 2026

Synopsis

Peel back the cover of this book to reveal an ordinary everyman middle-class autoworker’s life in hyper vivid detail, as he visits and revisits the same everyday places seven times at seven different ages and stages of adulthood. Written with rich and nearly animated imagery that’ll put readers in the middle of the sweat, tears, laughter, struggles and triumphs of a life that most can find relatable. It might not be the great American novel, but perhaps the most American story you’ll read all year.

“Dan is always a master wordsmith and storyteller. This book is no different. A spot on look at Midwest middle-class blue-collar life. I felt like I knew the characters. They reminded me of ones I know from working the factory floor and growing up Midwest blue-collar.” —Rabecca Stricker, member of UAW Local 12 Jeep Unit

“Dan Denton’s new novel is his answer to Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams. A book steeped in the passage of time while focused on a singular place and central character with themes of luck, broken homes, the ever-present factory doldrums and the escape that nature provides, this thin volume is his magnum opus. Slim but packed with ideas, pathos and the poetry of the everyday, this work grabs you by the hand and teaches you to dance. Read Dan Denton.”—Ted Jackins, author of But Did You Die?

“I cannot think of a more relevant writer right now than Dan Denton.”—Westley Heine, author of Busking Blues and others

Dan Denton is a free spirit that spent 25 years of his life laboring in American factories, including a decade spent working at the Toledo Jeep Assembly Complex. He was elected chief union steward in the day shift Wrangler assembly department, and was elected to serve as a delegate to the UAW Bargaining and Constitutional Conventions as a representative of UAW Local 12. He was part of a progressive faction in the union that was able to help get one member, one vote passed, and brought about historic and democratic change to one of America’s most powerful unions.

Denton wrote poetry next to machines and assembly lines for a decade and a half before getting published at the age of 34. In the 14 years since, he has won the Toledo City Paper’s annual poetry contest, been voted the best writer in Toledo, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, had his short stories and poems published in dozens of newspapers, zines, magazines and anthologies, had his work translated into, and published in Albanian, and has authored five books, including his previous novel on Roadside Press, The Dead and the Desperate.

He lives and writes in a 25 year old travel trailer that he has dubbed the “Scrapes of Wrath.”

Edition details

• Publisher: Roadside Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798995401315
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 162
• Editor: Modiano Richard