Two seafood restaurants. One dangerous bet. A chocolate milk bottle full of magical spice and a Cambodian spy with a mission. Herough Herough is a surreal literary novel about ambition, rivalry, romance, betrayal, and the stubborn art of moving forward.
Paperback $16.99 · Kindle $9.99 · Free with Kindle Unlimited
What this book actually is
Herough Herough is a 328-page comic literary novel set in the chaotic underworld of Lower Manhattan’s culinary scene. Two rival seafood restaurant owners — one stubborn and inventive, the other ruthless and well-funded — collide over a dangerous bet, a magical spice, a romance, a betrayal, and one annoying question that won’t let go.
It’s funny. It’s strange. It takes a serious swing at what it costs to build something personal in a world that mostly rewards safe things.
It is, technically, literary fiction.
Who this book is for
- Readers who liked Lamb, Jitterbug Perfume, or A Confederacy of Dunces
- People who think most novels behave too well
- Food, restaurant, and bar people who already know that taste is both a serious matter and a joke
- Anyone who has ever loved something enough to ruin themselves a little
- Madison readers who like supporting strange independent local art
- People building something personal while privately wondering whether the whole thing is a beautiful mistake
Some things that are actually in this book
- A chocolate milk bottle full of magical spice. It has more agency than most of the side characters.
- A Cambodian spy. Cover story: sommelier. Excellent at both jobs. Bad at staying out of the wrong romance.
- A restaurant that serves insects. Crickets, mealworms, scorpion in season. The chef calls it “menu honesty.”
- A business rivalry that escalates like a raccoon with venture funding.
- A woman with freckles who is described, in the book, as either holy or extremely well-funded.
- One question, repeated. How do you keep moving forward when the thing you love starts fighting back?
Where to buy
Want it from a Madison bookstore? Ask for it by name at A Room of One’s Own or Mystery to Me. They can usually order it within a week.
Behind the book
Posts about how Herough Herough got written, what’s actually in it, and what I learned trying to sell a strange book to a world that prefers safer ones. These are the long versions. They live here so they don’t clog up the main feed.
- The First Page — the opening of the novel. Read it before you decide.
- How I Wrote a Novel While Running a Beer Bar — the corner-booth confessions.
- The Six Strangest Things in My Novel — a field guide to the weirder furniture.
- A Tasting Menu Inspired by the Book — five courses, one night only at Garth’s Brew Bar.
- What I Read While Writing This Book — twelve books I stole from. Honestly.
- Why I Self-Published Instead of Querying for Three More Years — the math that talked me out of the traditional path.
About the author
Garth Beyer writes weird, funny, food-drunk novels for readers who like fiction with teeth, sauce, and a questionable business plan.
He owns Garth’s Brew Bar in Madison, Wisconsin, where most of Herough Herough was written and where the curated beer makes the rest of his ideas possible. He is a Certified Cicerone and a longtime product marketer. He has been writing sharp short essays at garthbox.com for years.
Herough Herough is his debut novel. He is at work on the next one.
Feed the weird part of your brain.
If you got this far, you are probably the reader I wrote this book for. One sentence of warning: it does not behave.
Already read it? A one-sentence Amazon review helps more than you’d think. Reviews are how weird books find their next strange reader.
