Product Description
A book about someone who grew up a little too late for the Sixties but then couldn't get over them... The restless rueful protagonist and narrator, Felix Skidwell, wants to, and does, escape from Minnesota, the 1970s and his conservative roots. The result is a poignant, but fitful, episodical tale that stretches from the virtual eve of an Upper Midwest high school graduation and a mind-blowing Des Moines Iowa Open Air Grateful Dead concert through programming artsy game software for, and a brief association with, Sixties guru Timothy O'Berry in Southern California. A year or so into his new life in California, Felix takes a few moments to reflect back while socializing at a posh Orange County barbeque. Check out ZZDave Menacing BBQ, prose set to music by no less than his high school buddy from the Midwest, Lonesome Dave Wasted. A continually entertaining, often uproarious, coming-of-age story filled with hope and longing, "Go west, young man," it is neither the malaise of being frozen permanently into the tundra or that of sinking helplessly into the creosote pit.
About the Author
Alan Mark Train is the author of Strawberry Fairchild And The Green Flame, an illustrated color fable for adults, as well as The Psychedelic Slacker coming-of-age novel. A murder mystery from the perspective of a technical support engineer is in progress. His prose, fiction and poetry have appeared in literary magazines (The Underground Rag Mag, Slick Press) and in the Santa Cruz Good Times entertainment weekly where he was one of the winners of a short story contest. His writings appear online on Associated Content, Buzzle.com and Constant Content. Train has an English B.A. from the University of Minnesota and was an ace feature writer on his high school newspaper many eons ago in the Upper Midwest, where he, like Felix Skidwell, the protagonist of The Psychedelic Slacker, "grew up just a little too late for the Sixties and then couldn't get over them." His daytime career as a software-oriented technical writer leverages experience gained during some years spent as a mediocre computer programmer. Interests Reading, studying and memorizing literature running the gamut from Chaucer and Shakespeare to James Bond, James Joyce and Thomas Pynchon is second nature. Habitat The author lives in Santa Cruz by the ocean with the marine layer, the fog, the seabirds, the seals and the nearby redwoods. Website http://fablepower.org
