Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire
Poe Ballantine, . . Hawthorne, $15.95 (353pp) ISBN 978-0-9766311-1-8
In deadpan first-person, Edgar, a 20-year-old pizza deliveryman in San Diego, tells within a few pages about his short stint at Humboldt State, hitching to Colorado Springs and landing a low-level job at a swanky hotel. When he receives a postcard from tropical Poisson Rouge Island that says simply, "I found your paradise, Johnny," Edgar joins his erstwhile college palthere. Teeming mosquitoes, housing that's either hideously expensive or impoverished, and the local zombies (which may be real) make the place less than idyllic, and when Edgar takes up with Johnny's girlfriend, their affair puts Edgar at the quarry end of a darkly comic version of
Reviewed on: 05/29/2006
Genre: Fiction
Open Ebook - 360 pages - 978-0-9833049-5-1
Paperback - 320 pages - 978-1-905847-69-3
Paperback - 224 pages - 978-0-9716915-9-9