A Parking Lot in the Jungle is a collision of memory and myth, where childhood abuse sits beside satirical takedowns of LinkedIn influencers, where poems about consciousness interrupt stories of addiction and survival. Michael Stuart excavates the American Midwest with unflinching honesty—tracking the damage of evangelical upbringing, the weight of inherited violence, and the strange work of loving people who hurt you. Here, a parking lot philosophy meets magical realism. A father locks his son outside during punishment. An alcoholic best friend drowns trying to retrieve a flannel shirt. A girl breaks a church window and discovers mascara is contraband. Capitalist Jesus sells bread at surge pricing. Through fragments of fiction, poetry, satire, and essay, Stuart maps the terrain between trauma and transcendence, dogma and freedom, the violence we inherit and the love we choose. For readers who loved Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and Maggie Nelson's Bluets—a genre-defying exploration of what it means to survive your own story. Michael Stuart is a writer and artist residing in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He holds a BA in English from the University of Tulsa and a Master from the University of Washington. Midwest by birth and heritage, he writes about the Americans that live between the coasts.