From the Inside Flap
Alpha Omega is about--and not about-Elvis, the dead-but-not-yet-dead King of rock and roll. At its center, it is the story of Bobby Snipes--ex-convict, brilliant guitarist, avatar of the Burning Love Temple, and "principal figure" at Graceland-by-the-Sea, the theme park of our dreams.
Alpha Omega is alos a story of Arthur "Hootchie_Cootchie" Magee-murderer, genius and master showman; the Revend Virgil Joy--failed Elvis imitator and cult leader; Maurice Short-billionaire owner of Graceland-by-the-Sea; and Short's daughter Beverly-former Ronald Reagan speechwriter, PR flack for Disneyworld, and queen if illusion and substance.
More than just an amalgam of these characters' stories, Alpha Omega is a comic journey through a culture which, like Bobby Snipes, yearns for a new, transcendent identity. The journey leads the reader into unexpected versions of once-familiar American places.
Finally, Alpha Omega is about us.
From the Back Cover
Alpha Omega
Max Childers
"In ALPHA OMEGAm the South isn't just a region, it's a seething, bedeviled planet, fraught by dark, comic, fierce hungers. Aniti-hero Bobby Snipes and his people lead lives so far out of control that to themselves they seem blithely normal. In their blistering redneck landscapes of fast food and sexy idols, these characters are crazy by themselves, craizer when they hook up with others. They've got gospel hearts and rock 'n roll souls. Who'll be King? Max Childers' lighting-bolt satire is gleeful and provocative. From the violent celebrations and brooding passions in ALPHA OMEGA, there emerge keen truths about what Americans hold dear. Between bouts of laughter, you'll find your heart has been sung to."
--Gary Holladoy
"In ALPHA OMEGA, Max Childers has written a masterful comic novel, unpending the heart-breaking wackiness of contempory America. It is the gospel of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll, according to Bobby Snipes, the mystic felon, Max Childers is a wickedly gifted writer. ALPHA OMEGA is the beginning of something new in American fiction, an urgent vision-tolerable because it is so funny-of something like the end."
--James Carroll
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Here's what critics had to say about Max Childer's first novel, Things Undone
"Max Childers' first novel is a very intelligent, very sour satire if the kinds of human rotteness that have been turning the stomachs of decent people snce the first stirrings of ethical insight...it's a good, sharp dose of literary vinegar."
--The New York Times Book Review
"Max Childers titled first novel Things Undone, but the fact is there isn't much he's left to the imagination in his cracker culture lampoon of Southern lawyers and televangelism...Mr. Childer has concocted a true burgoo, bubbling with action and boiling over with humor that's slapstick, side-splitting and downright satisfying."
--The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
"...prepare for a laugh-filled rollercoaster ride through hell...Truly a remarkable achievement...Don't miss this one. You might be in it."
--The Charlotte Observer
