And Every Day Was Overcast

“And Every Day Was Overcast [is] unlike any book I’ve ever read. [It’s] a mix of this clean, spare, unaffected prose about growing up near the swamps of South Florida—plus these incredible photos [Paul has] taken of the area.… A completely original and clearheaded voice.”—Ira Glass, host of This American Life

“I can count on my fingers the number of great books that seamlessly mix photographs and literary text in a compelling way. Paul Kwiatkowski’s And Every Day is Overcast not only achieves this rare feat, he does so with an artistry that makes the achievement nearly invisible. As compelling as the best movies or graphic novels, And Every Day is Overcast is a landmark in visual storytelling.”—Alec Soth

"Paul Kwiatkowski stitches together an ugly-beautiful fabric of volatile America, threaded with gators and bad acid trips, swampy living and early sexual encounters. There's hardly anything more American than this ode to coming of age in South Florida. A tour de force in the form of battered scrapbook memories."—Doug Rickard

Out of South Florida’s lush and decaying suburban landscape bloom the delinquent magic and chaotic adolescence of And Every Day Was Overcast. Paul Kwiatkowski’s arresting photographs amplify a novel of profound vision and vulnerability. Drugs, teenage cruelty, wonder, and the screen-flickering worlds of Predator and Married…With Children shape and warp the narrator’s developing sense of self as he navigates adventures and misadventures, from an ill-fated LSD trip on an island of castaway rabbits to the devastating specter of HIV and AIDS. This alchemy of photography and fiction gracefully illuminates the travesties and triumphs of the narrator’s quest to forge emotional connections and fulfill his brutal longings for love.

Paul Kwiatkowski is a New York-based writer and photographer. This is his first novel. His work has appeared in numerous outlets, including Juxtapoz, Beautiful Decay, Dazed and Confused, Fault, Dust, and American Suburb X.