Mel C. Thompson

eBook, ePUB

Harbor Boulevard (eBook, ePUB)

Beschreibung

Our protagonist hears from his friends in Costa Mesa that a kind of personality-cult leader is currently trendy among the higher social circles of Orange County. Because he views himself, despite his age, as an aspiring socialite, he insists on meeting the man who goes by the name Solomon Wedge. (The name is a hybrid of the Solomon of the Hebrew scriptures and the dangerous surfing spot off of Newport Beach called The Wedge.) Our socialite is not a believer in superstitions new or old, but agrees to a kind of initiation rite in order to be on the inside of all things Orange County. Although the initiation consists of merely walking the length of Harbor Boulevard over the course of a week or so, the protagonist is nonetheless too insecure and cowardly to endure the enterprise alone, and so he brings along an inscrutable friend who is never quoted directly, but only spoken about by our hero. In spite of this annoying limitation, the partner is a kind of force of nature, or perhaps an alter ego. The story is driven forward by stark personality divergences in the two traveling companions and by the fact that Solomon awaits them at the end of their quest. Whether what they encounter has nothing to do with Harbor Boulevard or everything to do with it, only the reader can decide. Like an empty container, perhaps the street has the potential to be filled with anything we put in it. The street in the story seems at least twice as long as the actual one is, but its true length is anyone's guess.

Technische Details

• Geräte: eReader
• mit Kopierschutz
• Größe: 0.21MB
• FamilySharing(5)

Barrierefreiheit

• Text-to-Speech

Autor

Mel C. Thompson is a retired wage slave who survived by working through temp agencies and guard agencies. Unable to survive in the real world of full-time, permanent work, he migrated from building to building, going wherever his agencies sent him, doing any type of work he could feign competency in and staying as long as those fragile arrangements could last. He somehow managed to get a B.A in Philosophy from Cal-State Fullerton in spite of his learning disorders and health problems. Unable to sustain family life due to depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, lack of transportation and lack of income, he lives alone in low-income housing and wanders around California on buses and trains. He began writing at the age of 14 and continues till the current day. (He turns 64 in June of 2023). In his early years he wrote pathetic love poetry until, in his thirties, he was engulfed by cynicism and fell in with a group of largely antisocial poets who wrote about the underground life of drugs, sex, alcohol, poverty, prostitution, heresy, isolation and alienation. In his fortes he turned to prose and began to write religious fiction with an emphasis on the comedic aspect of theology and philosophy. He now writes short novels focusing on the attempt to find meaning in a economic world beset with money laundering, unethical marketing, contraband smuggling, human trafficking, patent trolling, corrupt contracting and every manner of spiritual and psychological desperation and degradation. When he is not writing, he wanders from hospital to medical clinic to surgical room attempting to sustain what little health he has left after a lifetime of complications resulting from birth defects and genetic problems. When he is able, he engages in such hobbies as reading, walking, yoga and meditation; and whenever there is any money left over from his healthcare-related quests, he goes to wine tastings and searches for foodie-related bargains. Before the pandemic, he spent many years gaming various travel-points systems and wrangled many free trips to Europe. He is divorced and has no children, no pets, no real estate, no stocks nor any other assets beyond the $550 in his savings account. His career peaked in the early 2000s when he did comedy gags for a radio station and had about 10,000 listeners per week. However, currently, he may have as few as five active readers on any given day. He no longer has the stamina to promote his work and only finds new readers through ran...

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Mel C. Thompson
• Erscheinungstermin: 10. Mai 2019
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780463107683
• Artikelnr.: 56549971