PSYCHOPOMP VOLUME ONE: CRACKED PLATE is the story of Meena, a struggling writer who suffers a mental fracture on Portland's light rail that alters her life in an instant. Confused and afraid that her unexpected unraveling will result in universal rejection, she confronts a man in a coffee shop and asks if he'll be her stalker. Meanwhile, her parents Esther and Frank fly to Portland from Cleveland's Slavic Village to better measure their daughter's distress, and to reveal the ancestral baggage and unusual mental gifts possibly informing Meena's crack, and their own. Repair of all plates might be possible with the assistance of Lola, who witnesses Meena's fracture and learns that she is a psychopomp, a conductor of souls. Lola has something that belongs to Meena, but can only return it with the guidance of voices she's been told no one should hear.
Invocation, observation, and hallucination, PSYCHOPOMP examines the American Dream after waking, and new dreams escaping sleep.
Praise for PSYCHOPOMP
"It's like reading poetry. I have to read slowly and pay attention to every word because it's so goddamned great." - Rev. Ivan Stang, Founder, The SubGenius Foundation Inc.
"...a hoot, crazy fun and teeming with kaleidoscopic notions akimbo." Jack Matthews, author of The Charisma Campaigns
"...funny, and strangely beautiful. Sledz reveals mind-blowing truths about relationships and genetics, the natural and the supernatural." - Bobbi Buchanan, Founding Editor, New Southerner Magazine
Amanda Sledz grew up in Cleveland, and published her first articles in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. She’s currently completing her first young adult book The Falls Apart, part two of the Psychopomp series All of Us Are Hiding, along with a collection titled Channel Insomnia.
