Villanova MA Student Publishes Novel

Villanova MA student Adam Riekstins has published a novel with his publishing company, Parsley Wake Publishing. The book, Robin and the Great White Heron, is available in Kindle and paperback versions, both online and in select stores. Robin and the Great White Heron will also soon be released to Barnes and Noble and other major book retailers. 

Robin and the Great White Heron is a philosophical adventure that explores the meaning in our lives against the excesses of society, religious fanaticism, comical grief and bad art. When Robin’s friend dies, she is faced by a wave of existential reckoning and must come to terms with not only her own indifference to life but with the world around her that has become so strange and alienating.  

The novella takes influence from postmodern and philosophical authors such as Albert Camus, Nathanael West, Anthony Burgess and Vladimir Nabokov. The narrative aims to diagnose the modern problems of asserting singular identity in a sea of (now) 8 billion people. Through ironic dialogues, magical happenings and fable-like conundrums, Robin and the Great White Heron captures the disillusionment of a society built on endless pleasures and ego.  

Riekstins has been working as a creative writer and editor for the past six years, both for his music-review blog The Screech and through various freelance jobs. He obtained his bachelor’s degrees in both English and Music Industry from Belmont University and is currently working on obtaining his MA in English from Villanova University. 

"It wasn’t a specific word. It didn’t really matter, and it still doesn’t I suppose. But I really wanted a specific word and I wanted it to mean everything. So I tried to find it in the world through cinema and television. I wanted my word to be fantastic just like a film. I studied well, made friends and did everything I was supposed to... So here I am on the other side of death."