Richard Fifield Books In Order

Publication Order of RichardFifield Standalone Novels

Richard Fifield is a young adult, chick lit and literary fiction author from Montana best known for her debut novel “The Flood Girls.” She got interested in reading from a very young age as he read and studied the subscription to TV Guide like a bible when he was just four years old. As a six-year-old, she found her sister’s chest where she kept her trashy books and cigarettes. It was from the romance novels that he first realized that he was a homosexual and discovered his love for reading. Richard had always wanted to be an author as he lived for books even if they were forbidden to him. Luckily for him, his mother owned and run a gas station and did not have the time to police his reading. From the local grocery in town, he discovered the likes of Jackie Collins, Stephen King and the “Flowers in the Attic” series in its entirety all of which were technically forbidden for a grade-schooler. It was from the reading he did during this time that the seed of a career as an author was planted.

Since Richard Fifield’s mother was too busy with her business, he often tagged along with his sisters. His sisters were members of “Big Sky,” a softball club made up of glamorous and mannish, rich and poor, young and old women from town. While he spent much of the time taking care of the purses and keeping score, he took the time on the sidelines to read and even started the first unofficial book club in town. Richard loved those women for their love for the game and the ferocity on the field that left them all bleeding and sunburned from sliding into home and diving for balls. Their stories about their boyfriends and husbands and how they would cry from being overwhelmed with overdue bills, heartbreak among other things inspired his later stories. Over the years, his sisters moved on from the club and he started spending more time writing the manuscript of his first novel. He set his novel in 1991, at a time when homosexuality was still a taboo in many places and Richard Simmons was the only gay actor on TV. Having started exhibiting aspects of his gay identity, he was a target until he became friends with a pack of drunk, slutty, and aggressive alpha females. They became his bodyguards and he, in turn, became their best friend who looked out for them when they were too drunk to take care of themselves.

After college, Richard enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College intending to get his MFA so he could achieve his dream of becoming an author. But instead of finding his voice, he got into fashion, alcohol, and drugs. His fiction reflected his interest in shopping, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and crystal meth. Nonetheless, he did graduate from Sarah Lawrence but not before he had made enemies of the local bartender which meant that he could not attend the graduation party held at the bar. In the year 2000, he moved back home to Montana having been battered by New York City given his heavy drinking. In Montana, he continued drinking heavily until he found himself living in isolation in a trailer house on the outskirts of Missoula since no one wanted to live with him. He finally got sober when he went to rehab and got into a twelve-step program. Fifield had always thought that he could not write or be creative when he was sober but his therapist thought otherwise. He gave him three blank notebooks and instructed him to write a novel. Staying with the family of a friend in a cabin at “Big Sky Lake,” he had the draft of “The Flood Girls” written in shorthand within a week. Richard had finally found the release for the interesting life and times he had had and for all the stories of the women he had been friends with. It was like the protagonists had invaded his blood and now he had his release from putting it all down on paper. His friend told him that he looked like he had been on a bender and he felt high – from his own supply. “The Flood Girls” was published in 2016.

Richard Fifield’s “The Flood Girls” is a novel set in a small town named Quinn in Montana. The owners of the town are sassy and headstrong women who have only known Quinn as home. “The Dirty Shame” the only drinking joint in town is owned by Laverna Flood. She never bothers to mix drinks for her regulars who are silver mining lesbians, the widow of a local judge, and another who makes a living catching stray dogs. In the oppression of the poor and small town is a twelve-year-old named Jake Bailey who at his age is already into fashion, Jackie Collins novels, and alone time on the roof of his family’s banged up trailer. Jake is the target of the boys and young men in town and even Bert his cruel and violent stepfather often joins in. When Frank his only friend takes his own life, Rachel Flood takes over his trailer and moves in almost immediately. As a teenager, she had a reputation of sleeping with almost any man that had looked her way and despite the many years that have passed, it has proved almost impossible to shake off the image. What nobody knows is that she has changed and is now attending AA meetings, where she has made friends with Jake and hopes to make amends with everyone she had ever hurt.

“The Small Crimes of Tiffany Templeton” the second novel by Richard Fifield is the story of Tiffany Templeton, who has to serve probation since she has been expelled from reform school. She comes from a small town where she has the reputation of a delinquent. As part of her probation, she needs to report to a probation officer even as her mother checks out her every move which builds up some hostility and resentment. She always gives Tiffany the tiniest room even as they have a larger house. Her mother has designated the largest room in the house as a guest room even though they hardly get visitors. Her father had died a few months past and the home still has his things including the African violets that he had so tenderly nurtured and cultivated but have now been let to die. He was very close to Tiffany but he is not there when she needs him to help her in her journey of regeneration. Instead, all she has to work with are a mother with a derisive tongue and a hopeless brother. She is also dealing with a town full of peculiar neighbors, a domineering best friend, her first boyfriend, and an elderly cast of high maintenance drama production.