From the author
A Joplin story about what we keep.
Joshua Shackles is a Joplin writer and community advocate whose work is rooted in the people, places, and overlooked history of southwest Missouri.
In The Midnight Parade, he turns familiar streets and vanished landmarks into a family-friendly dark fantasy about belonging, memory, change, and the courage to let something end.
“Beneath the lanterns, costumes, and impossible doorways, this is a story about the things we try to keep: a home, a friendship, a place in a family, a version of life that feels as though it ought to last forever.”
The novel also reflects Joshua’s long involvement in Joplin community life. Its spectacle depends on volunteers, builders, organizers, caretakers, artists, public workers, historians, and people whose labor is often visible only when something goes wrong.
Come for the Halloween magic, living decorations, ghosts, creatures, and vanished landmarks. Stay for the people at the edges of the celebration and the small acts of care that prove more powerful than any impossible door.