Smoldering satire and personal narrative fuse in this epic tale of a Texas military school cadet navigating the 1960s counterculture revolution in a muscle car with fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror. Where is South Vietnam, anyway?A riotous and unhinged blend of Hunter S. Thompson and Charles Portis, Central Disorder is a book for subversives, malcontents, juvenile delinquents, anarchists, disappointed office seekers, rednecks, atheists, agnostics, doomsday types, Libertarians, revolutionaries, militarists, xenophobes, nativists, gonzo journalists, misanthropes, adventurers, Quakers, Yellow Dog Democrats, muckrakers, scalawags, and just about anyone else who can read and enjoys something different.
A thrilling, comic stroll through 1980s San Francisco and a pre-Internet ensemble of sorcerers, cults, megalomaniacs, and a man determined to follow a deep practice of laziness.In an exhilarating mix of Raymond Chandler and Richard Brautigan comes the story of James Stuckey and a charged, shambolic year through the eccentric fringe of the San Francisco Bay Area. Stuckey, stubbornly devout to a habit of laziness, inadvertently collides with a megalomaniac cult leader and his followers and is forced to begrudgingly face himself and take action. His careening, chaotic misfortunes finally culminate in a tense, near-deadly battle with a sorcerer. Set in 1986, before Northern California was a playground for Silicon Valley titans, The Misadventures of John Stuckey brings to life the nonconformity and unapologetic weirdness of the pre-Internet days, when getting rich quick required convincing others that if only they do what you say, they will grow rich in your shadow.In his first work of long-form fiction, Marc Allen, renowned author and publisher at New World Library, which he founded in 1977 with Shakti Gawain, spins an imaginative tale that is perfect for fans of The Big Lebowski, Tom Robbins, and Robert Pirsig. The Misadventures of John Stuckey is an electric, philosophical, and deeply funny journey.
A natural disaster, time, and chance conspire to lead a group of small-town Midwesterners into unimagined possibilities in this poignant and funny novel of growing, moving, and longing for home.When twelve-year-old Meg volunteers to play music at a nursing home, it’s clear that the staff and residents, especially the ornery and flirtatious Mattie and Frank, are far more interesting than the organ she can barely play. Immersed in the ribald rhythm of their stories, jokes, and complaints, she stumbles into an adulthood that is suddenly upended by a violent tornado that flattens her Minnesota suburb, along with the families and tenuous homes built there. As residents find themselves adrift, trapped, or orphaned, they all subsequently embark on radically different paths in a late-sixties America that is just as unmoored.Meeting again years later, circumstance forces Meg, Mattie, Frank, and struggling musician T. Lane to solve a problem they all share—homelessness (real or imagined). As the four disparate characters redefine the term “family,” they also reckon with the unexpected arcs of their lives. This is an earthy, touching, and funny tale of a journey across time and circumstance. Author Katherine Dieter has crafted an affecting story steeped in dialog and memory that is both unforgettable and gently surprising.
