As with any book I post here as complete, it might take anywhere from a month to three years for it to be put in print or e-pub. But you could own a copy of my homonym-rich, typo-ridden draft which goes to Lynn tomorrow when I get to my email box, for whatever donation you think it is worth.

 

Copyright 2020 James LaFond

A Crackpot Book

Editor/Publisher: Lynn Lockhart

In the Shadow of Fright, on the cusp of the darkly dawning Age of the Mask, the author makes his way from the Pacific Northwest into the insanity of the police state East, from a Portland that has become like Baltimore County, with police sirens blaring every half hour, when once a siren in a day was unusual. This book constitutes his observations, experiences, with dialogues and monologues, during his travels and sojourns across a nation dissolving like tears under a rain of fears.

 

This book is complete at 18,053 words and 151 pages set in Malgun Gothic 12 point.

Off to the Editrix it goes…

Contents

Overture 8

Starts and Finishes 11

‘Purchasing an Authentic Identity’ 13

I Get no REM Sleep at Night 14

What Good is a Big Head 16

The Truth about Toilet Paper 20

The Truth about Hand Baskets 29

‘Your Kin’ 32

‘Purchasing an Authentic Identity’ 34

Eye in the Sky 35

How Bad is It? 43

Maskland 56

Something I Shouldn’t Say on the Phone 59

‘It Was a White Guy’ 65

Yeti Waters 68

‘Cleaning Time’ 69

Ushers of Maskland 71

‘It’s Not the Time’ 74

A Dreaming God 81

The Sirens Blare Tonight 82

Yeti Waters Rating Women 87

Donning the Mask 93

Tooling Down 97

‘This is Apparently Their Airport;’ 99

Snow Everywhere, 102

Light Cracks the Grey Sky Ahead 104

He Sits Alone, 106

The Winding Ribbon of Green below 108

‘Amtrak is the Lost Art of Travel’ 109

Dale the Human 113

The Grey Sky Hangs a Dirtier Grey 118

The Front of the Viewing Car 119

A Country Reprieve 121

Winona, MN, 10:13 A.M. 123

Schwartz 128

‘Dis Nigga Work’ 136

Chicongo Blues 141

Chicongo to Pittsburgh 145

Epilogue 149