books / samples | prose
When you write compulsively, books are bound to happen. Sales never had any interest in publishing anything or making money at anything. His interest is creation – both noun and verb.
Included here is chapter one, “Restart”, of his novel, “The Marriage of Crowbar and Flower” (2019) and a couple short stories, from his Kerouac, Hunter Thompson-esque memoir, “Tangents From A Mystery Cruiser.” (from 2010 – when he literally couldn’t stop writing.)
“Crowbar” is the post climate Armageddon story of Bosun Elk, a man who became a mindsink in the brain melting heat. Mindsinks were rewired in the heat with the ability to remember – and play back like a human recorder – every detail of any event s/he’d seen or heard – or what anyone at that event saw or was thinking, or what anyone they met experienced or thought. Bosun’s specialty is recalling, and replaying, the magnificent performance of Ignito Mellon’s play, “The Marriage of Crowbar and Flower” on that terribly hot night at the Asterisk Theatre in Brighton UK. Bosun passed out in his shoebox office at Harvard while listening to a live broadcast of the play. For the few survivors, his replaying of, and commentary on “Crowbar” became the source of meaning and purpose in those confusing days after the collapse
“Tangents From a Mystery Cruiser” is entirely different. It’s R.Sales’ memoir (speculative non fiction) written just prior to the ‘over the top’ poetically charged period in 2010. He never finished it, but some of the stories are hilarious, some are heartbreaking, but they could trigger memories for those who lived through the Revelation of The Sixties. One tragic story is about Richard trying to break up a fight after a gig in Maryland that ended with him cradling a dying 21 year old man/boy in the parking lot out back – on the man/boy’s birthday. The other is about his hilarious first suicide attempt – with a Smith and Wesson garden hose – while in a very specialized state of mind