He ran it like a business. Then they came with drones.

It started with a phone call and a hustle. It ended with a SWAT team, a surveillance drone over the building, and a million-dollar bond.

In between, there was money, loyalty, betrayal, a chaotic trip through the Amazon, a jail cell that defied belief, and a cast of people who were never supposed to become family. Still Standing is the darkly funny, brutally honest story of how a kid from a broke Midwest household built an operation, lost almost everything, and walked out the other side with his footing — and his sense of humor — somehow intact.

It’s about poverty and power. About the people who stay and the people who fall off. About laughing because the alternative is worse.

He lost a year. He lost people he’ll never get back. But he’s still standing — and he wrote it all down.

A first-person autofiction novel. The story isn’t over. Book two is coming.

Book details
Literary fiction · autofiction · 496 pages · 6 × 9 in · Paperback
ISBN 979-8-9966004-0-3 · First edition, 2026 · Releases August 22, 2026

Content notice
Still Standing is autofiction and deals frankly with: drug dealing, drug use and addiction (extensive, central to the plot); incarceration; violence and physical assault; guns and weapons; law enforcement action including a SWAT raid; death, grief and loss; betrayal, theft and confidential informants; animal harm and pet death; poverty, housing instability and eviction; strong language throughout; brief sexual content and references to sex work.

Shop

Nothing Was Taken

Still Standing