Joseph Earl Thomas Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Joseph Earl Thomas is an accomplished published author. He is known for writing his memoir Sink, which came out from Grand Central Publishing in 2022 and made the long list for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award.

There is also another novel that also came out from Grand Central Publishing in 2024 and is titled God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer. He is also the author of Leviathan Beach, a collection of stories.

Joseph Earl Thomas has also had his work be featured in publications such as the Virginia Quarterly Review, The Kenyon Review, The New York Times Book Review, and Dilettante Army.

He has been honored with the 2020 Chautauqua Janus Prize, as well as fellowships from Tin House, Bread Loaf, VONA, and Kimbilio. Joseph graduated from the MFA program in prose at the University of Notre Dame, and has attended the University of Pennsylvania to pursue his PhD in English.

Joseph Earl Thomas is also a part of the Sarah Lawrence College’s writing faculty. He teaches courses in video games, poetics, black studies, queer theory, and more at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

Sink: A Memoir is the memoir from Joseph Earl Thomas. This is a book that you are going to want to read if you love unique memoirs written by everyday people. Joseph Earl Thomas tells his own story, about how tough it was to grow up in a home surrounded by hazards as well as how great it is and was to find a place in geek culture.

Joseph Earl Thomas always grew up with the constant feeling of being under threat. He was stuck in a home where he had to contend with a mother with shifting moods addicted to crack, his family’s attempts to love, the daily demeaning comments, the roaches falling down from the ceiling, often into the food they were eating.

Violence was a presence at school and in the home, and Joseph always found that his stomach was empty and stomach was something that he could not escape. When he asked for food, he was often found to be met with casual indifference or even a hostile approach.

Joseph was always on the outskirts of socialization. He wanted to be accepted by the other boys and kids his age, but he was just somehow too much unlike them. He found an escape from his world in virtual worlds and fantasy, which were able to provide him with islands of happiness in a childhood where everything seemed to be difficult and harmful all of the time.

Putting a lyrical quality to the life that he actually went through, Thomas takes the reader through all of the details of his circumstances, showing how lonely he was and also the things that becoming part of geek culture offered to him.

Thomas also covers toxic masculinity and the cycle of violence in his environment. With brief moments of joy occurring here and there, this is the story of a young man who is coming of age in an environment that he can’t control but more and more finding outlets and things he care about to sustain him that will ultimately become part of his life and allow him to build a community that he cares about. An interesting read from Joseph Earl Thomas that you will appreciate!

God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer is the debut novel from Joseph Earl Thomas. You may have experienced the lyrical nature of this author with his memoir. Now find an entirely new side of the author with this story of a character named Joseph Thomas.

This is the story about living as a black person in the city of Philadelphia. It’s also about the fight to build up uniquely intimate connections for an ex-Army grad student.

Joseph Thomas was deployed to fight in the Iraq War, and now he’s trying to do anything that he can to find his footing. He’s a MD and PhD student enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania and works in a North Philly hospital as an emergency department tech.

Then he becomes interested in the Holmesburg Prison Experiments. This is where the prison does scientific trials on the inmates. His curious nature leads him to find out more and also meet and get to know better his estranged father. His father is serving time for statutory rape since Joseph’s mother was a teenager at the time.

Then there’s fellow vet Murray, his best friend. He starts judging the journey that he’s on, while also pushing him towards a self-discovery that could ruin everything. He’s a single father and is trying to deal with the responsibilities in his life.

Joseph is trying to be a good friend, a good father, a good student, and to get through all of the long shifts that he takes on at the hospital. He’s also dealing with getting closer to his father. All along, he tries to talk about the struggles of making it in the world and more. A very interesting book that fans of his memoir will certainly enjoy!