Brady Stefani - The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman: A Novel

Praise for The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman

Brady G. Stefanis The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman finds a way to thread together a fast-paced young adult novel feel with a substantive agenda. Stefanis storytelling skills and elegantly simple language immediately get you involved in an emotional, suspenseful, off-balance reading experience that is equal parts drama and science fiction.

Ian Kahl, author of Anxiety is a Rambling Dagger, and That Faraway Place

Beyond our everyday world there lies the alternative reality of childhood, a universe populated by strange beings and powered by our collective imaginations. The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman is a doorway for readers of all ages that returns us to that world from which so many have become disconnected. Brady G. Stefanis ability to connect us to that larger, weirder reality is a gift from an ever-changing, ultimately unknowable cosmos.

John E. L. Tenney, Paranormal Researcher

Stefanis The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman is a thought-provoking and emotional journey through a young girls mind as she struggles to understand who she is, where she came from, and who she is supposed to beall while deciphering between reality and the tricks our minds can sometimes play on us. Stefani beautifully demonstrates how difficult life can be for anyone who thinks or acts a little differently, and reminds us that, more often than not, the things that terrify us the most are the things trying to save us.

Jessica Stevens, author of Within Reach

As the father of two teenage girls, I can tell you that Brady Stefani must have some sort of supernatural helmet that helps him think and write in their language. But The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman is much more than a novel for teens. This fast-paced adventure kept my attention, blazing back-and-forth from reality to an alter-world so close by that its creepy. Heres a page-turner that captures a lot about childhood struggles through an imaginative story filled with surprises.

Jim Schaefer, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and writer for the Detroit Free Press

Brady Stefani has written a wonderful coming-of-age tale of an adolescent girl who is struggling to grasp what is real and what is not real. While conveying the actual inner experience of an adolescent is a difficult task, because of the unconscious and incomprehensible facets of the mind, Stefani uses a scientific metaphor to accurately convey the demands, perils, and triumphs of adolescence that must be traversed to become an adult. With The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman, Stefani has achieved an important literary form that will be of interest to adolescent and adult readers alike.

Melvin Bornstein, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Wayne State University, Training and Supervising Analyst at Michigan Psychoanalytical Institute, and editor of Psychoanalytic Inquiry

The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman

Copyright 2016 Brady Stefani

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

Published by SparkPress, a BookSparks imprint,
A division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC
Tempe, Arizona, USA, 85281
www.gosparkpress.com

Published 2016
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-940716-34-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-940716-35-0 (e-bk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015960213

Cover design Julie Metz, Ltd./metzdesign.com
Cover photo Michaela M. Frunek
Formatting by Kiran Spees

All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Credit for Epigraph Song Lyrics:
Scarlet Begonias
Words by Robert Hunter
Music by Jerry Garcia
Copyright (c) 1974 ICE NINE PUBLISHING CO., INC.
Copyright Renewed
All Rights Administered by UNIVERSAL MUSIC CORP.
All Rights Reserved Used by Permission
Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

For Beckett, Blaze, and Heather Stefani.
Also, for the chosen many who experience the alienation of mental suffering. Know you are not alone, find your pathway out.

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Once in a while you get shown the light
In the strangest of places if you look at it right.

Robert Hunter/ Jerry Garcia

Lightning ripped across the northern California sky, then splintered down through the rain and disappeared behind our neighbors house. Letting the door slam shut behind me, I ran away from the warmth of our porch light into the darkness of our backyard. My mom wouldve killed me if shed caught me outside that late at night. Especially in a thunderstorm, and on the night before my fifteenth birthday, with the big party she had planned for tomorrow. But I had to get out of the house before I fell asleep and they came for me. And they were coming!

A gust of wind blew my hair against my face. I swiped it out of my eyes just in time to see a plastic lawn chair tumbling through the air. I covered my head with both arms, but a leg of the chair smashed against my elbow. Ouch!

I dropped onto the wet grass, pulled my knees into my chest, and rocked nervously back and forth. Water soaked up through my nightgown and my underwear, making me shiver.

None of these things mattered, though. Because something far worse was happening inside my head. A memory of me as a little girl, on the night my grandpa Dahlen disappeared from his cottage, was trying to claw its way into my consciousness. And I didnt want to think about that night. Ever.