Kirjahaku

It’s dawn in America. At least it’s dawn in the Blue Mountains, where the nation’s eyes have turned. Because on this day, January 20, 2001, Inauguration Day, a man who is spectacularly unqualified to be President—a man just thirty-three years old, who wants his mother to be his Vice President, who has never held a job, and has no apparent political views at all—is about to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. Several problems, however, block William Conrad Brant MacKenzie’s entrance to the Oval Office. First, the rumor mill is flooded with talk Willy may well be insane, or at least emotionally unstable. Second, the Supreme Court has refused to recognize his election because of his age. And third, even if Willy is inaugurated, he may have a difficult time presiding over the nation. As the twenty-first century dawns, the United States is in a rapid state of political, social, and moral decline. So how did Willy MacKenzie, scion of one of America’s wealthiest and most eccentric families, get elected in the first place? To discover the answer to this puzzling question, renegade Gonzo journalist Mr. Jack Steel, Willy’s own Mephistopheles, takes us on a journey through 20th century America. We meet Willy’s great grandfather, Ulysses S. Grant MacKenzie; his reclusive, war hero father; his mother, a strong, magical woman of Iroquois ancestry; and Dawn, the great and enduring love of Willy’s life. Skillfully and cunningly, Steel weaves a story of a nation in transition, of war and peace, of political skullduggery and environmental disaster, of generational struggles crowded with ambition, corruption, and lost innocence. As the journalist speaks, and more than one hundred years of American history flash by, the suspense mounts around Willy’s Inauguration. Will he take the oath of office? Is he qualified to take the oath? Or is Willy merely a pawn in a grand and sinister scheme? This is Thomas William Simpson’s most outlandish work to date. Prepare to be thrown into a crazed and surreal world, almost hallucinatory in scope. Full Moon Over America is all at once an amusing, troubling, and all together unconventional novel about love and trust and power and family and the God-given right of every individual to live life as he or she sees fit. Like all of Simpson’s novels, Full Moon Over America is rich in its language, accessible in its plot, and driven by the dreams and obsessions of its unconventional characters. A truly distinctive and original American work of fiction.

This Way Madness Lies (originally Published by Warner Books January 1992) What do you get when you mix fact, fiction, fantasy, history, deception, decadence, ego, affluence, and ambition? You get madness In this case-Thomas William Simpson's remarkable novel This Way Madness Lies, a literary debut of enormous exuberance and daring imagination. Wild Bill Winslow, 70, falls down the back stairs of the old family mansion in Far Hills, NJ. During the fall he breaks a few bones, questions his sanity and his immortality, and knocks himself cold. He's discovered, broken and battered, by sweet Evangeline, who rushes him to the hospital. When Wild Bill comes around he asks his young mistress to summon his wayward children and his petulant second wife... And so begins Simpson's darkly comic tale of the Winslow dynasty and their New World adventure. With a grand cast of eccentric characters from both past and present, Simpson weaves a family saga laced with religion and rebellion, murder and mayhem, alcohol and drugs, infidelity and true love, and enough wars to make even the most peaceful Americans think twice about their heritage. Wild Bill has nine offspring, some dead, most still among the living. Actors, ex-pats, playboys, forest rangers, full-blooded psychotics-they are a supremely alienated lot; alienated from Dear Old Dad, from one another, from the harsh glare of reality. They move through life like refugees from the womb. One by one these tortured souls make their way home to the family manse. None of them are sure what they will find. Over the course of one of the wildest family reunions ever chronicled, one young Winslow will plot murder, another will commune with the dead, and all will become players in the larger drama of a family on the brink of collapse. But the Winslow clan, like America itself, is a resilient lot. Since moving from the Old World to the New countless generations ago, they have survived shipwrecks, Indian attacks, economic ruin, marital dissolution, and more wars than any of them care to count. But they're still standing, still battling, still searching for that elusive American Dream. This Way Madness Lies draws on this present generation of Winslows in a search for clues about the origins of the family's madness. What emerges is a fable of inevitability and fate; a story all at once compelling, comical, and deeply disturbing for it touches that place where we are all most vulnerable-family. The Winslows may not be every American family, but strip away their swagger and their armor and what remains is the blood and guts of the American Experience-if such a fairytale still exists.

The Gypsy Storyteller Friendship. Love. Lust. Betrayal. Freedom. An often excruciating cycle we all must pass through at least once in our lives... Thomas William Simpson, the acclaimed author of This Way Madness Lies, follows his impressive debut novel with an extraordinary work of pure storytelling magic. The Gypsy Storyteller tells the tale of two young men whose lives, from the time of their births, are fatefully linked. It is also the story of a devastating lovers' triangle spinning wildly out of control. Growing up in an affluent suburb of New York City, Matthew Chandler and Daniel Hawthorn have much in common. But they are, in fact, polar opposites, emotionally and psychologically. Matthew descends from solid English stock, pure white Angle Saxon Protestant stuff right down to his core. Daniel's mother, a direct descendent of Nathaniel Hawthorne, has managed to cast off her Puritan cloak, marrying a full-blooded Eastern European Gypsy whose family was annihilated during the Holocaust. Matthew is preternaturally cautious. Daniel is relentlessly daring. Matthew plays by the rules, Daniel breaks them with gusto. Through a boyhood of wild, uproarious adventures that include jumping boxcars, a fatal stabbing, and an eye-opening but terrifying trip to Czechoslovakia in the company of Daniel's father, the boys' unlikely friendship endures. Until Matthew, herded off to boarding school by his uptight parents, meets the beautiful and mysterious Rachel Ann Fredericks. Almost immediately, the straight line that has held Matthew and Daniel together for so many years transforms itself into a triangle. Gifted, free-spirited, and wildly independent, Rachel forces a whole new dimension upon the young men's lives, forcing them to confront the reality they can be enemies as well as allies. In The Gypsy Storyteller Simpson deftly explores the connections between friendship, love, and betrayal. And through the sheer power of his prose he makes us believe that freedom, even the dream of freedom, is what ultimately holds our lives in the balance. Full of the spirit of adventure-physical, spiritual, and sexual-this constantly surprising novel pushes back the horizons of contemporary fiction. The Gypsy Storyteller pulses with flesh and blood vitality, humor, and above all, with a keen sensitivity for the painful struggles of the human heart. In the best tradition of Mark Twain, John Fowles, and John Irving, this fine and generous novel takes us places we have not visited before.

I know your time is valuable. I know your attention span suffers in this era of Stimuli Overload. This is why I want to tell you the biggest story I can using the fewest number of words. And that, essentially, is the premise behind Middle Class American White Boy. This first edition contains 15 narratives... stories... poems... verses... whatever you want to call them. I prefer to call them rhythms. I love rhythm. You can read (either silently or aloud) each rhythm in the collection in 2-5 minutes. To hold your attention for even that long-before you scroll away or wander off-I have to create one rapid-fire image after another in your brain. Middle Class American White Boy unfolds like a memoir. Each rhythm tells a story from some crucial period of my life. The first-Paradise Lost-takes place during my first trip abroad at age 15. My parents sent me to Germany to spend the summer with my oldest brother. I had many wild adventures, culminating in Munich when the Black September Terrorists murdered a bunch of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Summer Olympics. Next up is Welfare, a comical look at fathers-in this case my father-trying to move kids in their twenties out of the house and out on their own. The Universe-my own personal War & Peace-tells the tale of my time in Argentina during the Troubles. When I wrote the account many years ago it topped out at almost 30,000 words. I have now reduced that same story to a powerful rhythm of just over 900 words. The rhythms in Middle Class American White Boy are chronological. I travel. I dream. I mature. I write. I publish. I fall in love. I marry. I become a father. My view of life and what is important expands and changes. Always I question the status quo, especially my own. I am a life-long reader and writer of novels. I love the long form. But the world is fast changing. I need to keep pace. I need to change my rhythm.

The Hancock Boys (Originally Published by Bantam Books March 2000) The Hancock Boys is a wild ride, a uniquely terrifying thriller that breaks all ten of the Ten Commandments... with a vengeance. The Hancock Boys embraces the Seven Deadly Sins... with gusto. Come and meet The Hancock Boys. John and Will. Identical twins. Indistinguishable in every way. Right down to the Life they lead. And the Wife they share. Not since Cain and Abel have there been two brothers like John and Will Hancock. Thomas William Simpson, the author of such diverse titles as The Caretaker, Full Moon Over America, The Passage, and The Affair, has written a captivating tale of revenge, brotherly love, fame, fortune, and marital intrigue. So what would happen if two identical twin brothers decided to share a career, a wife, a family, a life? What might such a decision mean? Where might it lead them? And what might be the consequences? Well, this is precisely what the Hancock brothers of Boston, Massachusetts have done. And now they take turns playing the role of the perfect husband, father, and bestselling author while the other brother gallivants around the globe living out his wildest fantasies. It seems like the perfect setup. The best of all possible worlds. But it can't last. Can it? What will happen if one of them pushes the game too far? What if there is someone out there who knows their secret? And perhaps most terrifying of all, what if one of the brothers thinks the other brother is teetering on the brink of a breakdown, on the edge of madness? The Hancock brothers both begin to sense the gig is almost up, their insane game very nearly over. And so they both have plans to protect their marriage, their skyrocketing career, the perfect life they lead. Any residual trust now shattered, the brothers realize they must become one. But which brother will make the ultimate sacrifice? The Hancock Boys-two brothers playing the definitive cat and mouse game. One must die so the other may live.

Those Murderous Macbeths: A Titillating Tale of Rumor, Revenge & Murder. It's a big, entertaining, contemporary novel that takes up space from the wide-open rolling hills of Idaho to the cloistered manses of Nantucket Island. The Macbeths are the stars of the show. A crazy (literally), competitive, ambitious lot they are, and riddled with a wide array of psychological euphorias ranging from obsessive compulsive disorder to megalomania. Present in our narrative, of course, are weddings, births, and deaths. There are feuds galore and murders many, war and peace and no end of family love, harmony, hate, and distrust. Money (what else?) causes no end of problems from way back when right up until the present day. It might even be said, if we took money out of the mix, that these Macbeths are actually a tight-knit clan with blood proving thicker than water. But this is America, after all, and so money is an essential ingredient in our narrative soup, and we all know the Almighty Greenback thins blood into a Niagara of want, greed, and deception. The set-up for Those Murderous Macbeths is deliciously simple-a wedding invitation. Young Dane Macbeth wants to marry his penniless sweetie Ms. Melissa Brant at the First Congregational Church of Nantucket. No problem, right? A lovely young couple deeply in love wants to wed. Who could possibly object to such a celebration? Well, the invitations go out, and lickity split you got it, all hell breaks loose. The present-day narrative unfolds over just a few glorious summer days before, during, and after the wedding. But much of the novel unfurls in family flashbacks weeks, months, years, even generations in the past. It's all leading up to the reception at the Nantucket Yacht Club and the bloody, murderous mess that will shortly thereafter ensue. Those Murderous Macbeths is a modern American novel-Big Characters, Lots of Plot and Subplots, Rampaging Narrative, Colossal Themes, Slippery Language, and no end of Twists, Turns and Unpredictability.

"But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asks Candide. "To drive us mad," replies Martin. Voltaire was an amusing and sarcastic guy. If his was the Age of Enlightenment, we live in the Age of Schizophrenia. We are all at once going stark raving mad and attaining the deepest levels of spiritual fulfillment. Insanity and Nirvana all in the same breath. At times it's hard to grasp and enough to make us gasp. But see now the hero of Gawd Bless Amurica, America Augustus Mirth. August, he prefers. He's a throwback to the Sixties, to the Age of Aquarius, to cross country trips in an old VW microbus and a fat bag of weed. But before his hippie sojourn, he played middle linebacker for Middlebury and fought with the Marines in the jungles of Vietnam. Three wives, a dozen kids all named after the original thirteen colonies, August is a chatty but impenetrable guy, a complex American male. Master automotive mechanic Eddie Rucker has been thoroughly disenfranchised in the Age of Schizophrenia. He's lost and lonely as hell and recently purchased a handgun in the Live Free or Die State. Eddie knows his wife is boffing the pastor. Eddie knows his job at Jiffy Lube is a lousy, dead-end, loser's job. Eddie knows he's a crappy son, husband, and father. And by God for all these reasons and many more old Ed is thoroughly ticked off. He's also depressed and strung out on booze, painkillers, and worry, but Ed can't digest all these marvels of the modern world so he settles on anger. Rage. Vexation. And the oh so sweet possibility of revenge. Reverend Sandy Miles has been having sex with Ed's wife. He can't help himself. He may be a Man of the Cloth but he is wholly a Man of the Flesh. He has lost interest in his wife and in God. The whole notion of God has started to bore and annoy Sandy. All that faith and sanctimony. Sure, he puts on a good show every Sunday morning, but the rest of the time he's lying and cheating and gambling and living a life of pure delightful sin. America Augustus Mirth, Edward Rucker, and Reverend Sanford Miles are on a collision course. Destiny, or perhaps free will, is about to bring together this trio of depleted American males at the First Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. What happens at that chapel, and in the days to follow up at the Mirth family farm in Middlebury, Vermont, will alter forever all three men's lives. And America, the country, may never be the same again.

New York Times reporter Mike Goodman wants to interview billionaire investor Jacob Man. When finally he gets his chance, Goodman gets an earful. Man tells Goodman he is an Immortal who has been alive in his most recent incarnation since the French Revolution. So who are these Immortals? They are, of course, souls who live forever. They are the 666 Fallen Angels who broke from God after God had the audacity to revoke their ability to procreate. For centuries the Immortals have battled God and his dream of creating a peaceful, harmonious planet. Whereas God desires love, beauty, and tranquility, the Immortals seek war, pestilence, and chaos. And so how can there be Love Among the Immortals? Read and see. Love Among the Immortals is a novel of ideas, but it is also an amusing, entertaining, fast-paced tale filled with wonder and love. Three separate love stories swim through these pages, all with their own trials and tribulations, conflicts and resolutions. There is also power on these pages, and politics, as one of the wealthiest Immortals on earth is busy running for President of the United States. Yes, Rex Blackman, The Black Cat, who imports illegal immigrants onto his New Mexico ranch and then hunts them for sport, has secured the nomination and is knocking on the White House door. You have never read a novel quite like Love Among the Immortals. It is all at once alarming and a hoot. You blow off the Audacious Insanity of the premise one page and Fret it may all be Feasible on the next. Anyone who believes in God might well be convinced of the existence of Immortals. Tongue in cheek? Perhaps, but a year ago what thinking person would've dreamed we'd be in this peculiar pickle?