Goon Dust Love

Elaine just wanted to save the oceans. Michael just wanted to get high at prom.

But then they ended up in a strange wolf's apartment. They had to burn mom's car, go on the run and sell magazines for Pig Dad. They even had to lie on their college applications.

Goon Dust Love is chosen families and queer love, fandom and financial aid. It’s a melancholy look back at what it was like to grow up at the end of the 90s, in a world teetering between optimism and apathy. It's about realizing that friendships change and the environment's not going to be saved by buying a t-shirt. It's a strange and tender unraveling of the decisions that young people make when they're doing their best and still failing.

Rabbit Effect is a tiny press and production company based in San Marcos, TX run by Jessika Malone and Daniel Carter. We print books and put on shows.

Daniel Carter moved to Austin in 2003, but he did not work for Pig Dad. His chapbook, Here Both Sweeter, won the Wick Chapbook Contest and was published by Kent State University Press. This is his first novel about a mole who does PCP.

Goon Dust Love cover

Book One: The Wolf

Michael just wants to get some drugs for prom. Elaine just wants to go to college and save the oceans. But she also wants to make her best friend happy, and soon the friends are hanging out with the burners by the band hall and going to meet with drug-dealing wolves. When the deal goes sideways, the mouse and the mole realize they're probably not going to make it to graduation.

Book Two: The Pig

After fleeing to the big city, Elaine and Michael are taken in by Pig Dad's gang of magazine-selling, rough-playing miscreants. It's hash browns in the morning and smoking and drinking in the playspace at night, but Elaine still wants to go to college, and after Michael has a violent run-in with Pig Dad, it's time to leave the franchise.

Book Three: The Yellow House

Elaine and Michael make it to the yellow house, and it seems like they’ve finally found a home and a family. Michael starts gardening. Elaine makes new friends and goes to a party. But Michael’s acting strange. He’s been talking to the dead wolf, and when the other animals put on a prom, everything comes to head.

Book Four: Environmental Terrorism

Elaine joins the campus environmental and starts spending more time with Natasha. Michael and Rodney bond over their interest in an obscure television show and start working on a new art project. Elaine confronts Michael over what happened after prom and has to decide how far she's willing to go to change the world.