Books by Author Chuck Augello

Chuck Augello, 2020

On a beautiful summer morning at the Jersey Shore, 4-year-old Sarah Carpenter wanders toward the ocean and never returns. The police think she drowned, but her babysitter Amy claims Sarah was abducted. The only other witness, 17-year-old Donnie Marcino, didn’t see a thing. A narcoleptic since birth, he was fast asleep. Twenty years later Sarah’s disappearance still haunts Donnie, as does his lingering bond with Amy. When she calls from the hospital after a failed suicide attempt, Donnie returns to his hometown, but how can he help Amy, and help himself, without changing the past? In The Revolving Heart, love and redemption collide as the adult Donnie struggles to atone for his youthful mistakes. A Best Books of 2020 selection by Kirkus Reviews.

Chuck Augello, 2021

For aspiring indie filmmaker Kevin Stacey, it's another day on the set of his first film, but when his estranged father, a failed Hollywood actor, arrives unexpectedly with a bundle of cash, a gun, and a stolen capuchin monkey, he's propelled toward the journey that will change his life. The monkey, Henry, has been liberated from a research lab by animal rights activists. Inspired by his friend Veronica to reevaluate his relationship with other species, Kevin learns about the pain and suffering inflicted on lab animals as he forges a bond with the capuchin. When father and son embark on a road trip with Henry, Kevin is caught between the egocentric father who abandoned him and the temperamental monkey whose fate is in his hands. With both the FBI and his mother's ghost watching, will Kevin risk his career and his father's freedom to bring the stolen monkey to safety? Meanwhile, Veronica's encounter with an eccentric Catholic priest triggers her own journey toward change. A heartbreaking yet comic family drama, A Better Heart examines the human-animal bond and the bonds between fathers and sons, challenging readers to explore their beliefs about the treatment of non-human species.

Chuck Augello, 2023

This collection of 29 interviews explores the outer reaches of the Kurt Vonnegut universe. Conversations reveal how Robert B. Weide's letter to Kurt led to a long friendship and an acclaimed documentary, how readers in the former Soviet Union fell in love with Vonnegut during the Cold War, how Ryan North and Albert Monteys adapted Slaughterhouse-Five into a graphic novel, how two podcasters introduced him to a new generation of readers, and how Vonnegut's time teaching at the Iowa Writers Workshop helped transform him from an unknown paperback writer into a literary superstar. Also included are eight essays by the author. These cover Vonnegut's thoughts on guns and loneliness, evaluate his posthumous publications, offer a guide to the best Vonnegut videos available online, and ask questions like "Was Kurt Vonnegut secretly a romance writer?" A resource for students, scholars and fans, this book offers windows into Vonnegut's life and art that are often overlooked in standard biographies.