Clucked

A Quirky Nautical Tale of Adventure, Misadventure, and Justice Served

By: Troy Hollan

Narrated by: Marlin May

Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

Love a good adventure story-one with sweet old dogs and flawed, yet lovable humans? Hate the idea of factory farming and animal abuse? If so, you're gonna love Clucked! Clucked takes the listener, its bereaved Spam-loving protagonist, and one elderly rat terrier on a wild voyage from Corpus Christi Bay to the Sea Islands.

What do you do when you have nothing left to lose? You say goodbye to everything and everyone you'd ever known, pack up your worldly belongings (and an old half-blind dog), cast off your lines and set sail in your tiny sailboat to anywhere else.

Two years ago, Matt lost his wife to an asleep-at-the-wheel truck driver for the corrupt Clawson Chicken Corporation, and most of his savings to a court battle with the aforementioned fowl magnate. Trusting that the ocean will heal his battered psyche, Matt heads out from Corpus Christi Bay in a vintage sloop, trying to out sail bad memories and find a path forward.

As he winds his way east beyond the Gulf, he has adventures (and misadventures), meets a quirky cast of characters, and is dogged at every turn by reminders of the reach of the greedy chicken king, Colonel Clyde Clawson. A close encounter with a coral reef nearly wrecks his boat, a mishap that draws him away from his loosely-charted journey, up the intracoastal waterway, to Bullfrog's Boatyard, and ultimately into the heart of Gullah Geechee country.

Here, Matt meets a beguiling linguistic anthropologist and learns the terrible truth about the Colonel, his secret lab, and his cannibalistic coterie (the Circle of Tantalus). With environmental abuse running rampant and factory farming taking on a whole new meaning, it will be up to Matt and friends, both old and new, to bring down the greedy Clawson corporation, find justice for its victims and along the way, save a musical dog, and a whole bunch of chickens.

©2023 Black Rose Writing (P)2024 Beacon Audiobooks

Clucked for Chicken Nuggets

Troy Hollan delivers, as every bit advertised, a quirky adventure following our hero Matt along a seafaring journey he has set out for himself. In Clucked, we are sitting port side or is it starboard, Hollan will make it right, regardless we are there by Matt’s side as he travels from Corpus Christi, Texas towards the Florida Keys and beyond on his reliable sailboat. It hasn’t been that long since Matt lost most if not everything he ever cared about except possibly for his boat and his trusty dog companion. His wife was tragically killed, and his legal fees mounted to the point he felt leaving behind everything and everyone that was part of his life was the best course.
​During our time with Matt, we realized he always feels the need to be doing something, moving in a direction, permanently in motion was him at his best. His wife described it as “geographical fallacy of happiness.” Why was he always needing to be moving and would he eventually find whatever he was moving towards, and if he did find it would it settle his need to keep going? All good questions in this funny little tale.
​Hollan’s fluency captures the essence of nautical life, and his descriptions nourish our thirst along our journey with Matt, bringing us in close to the seafarer’s thoughts and ideas. Things abruptly change during his passage, as we all know will happen in perpetual motion. This new path the reader will be taken on is more important to our hero and we will move forward with it. You will likely enjoy the diversion, but you may never dip your chicken nuggets in that sweet honey mustard sauce ever again.