Empty Bottle of Smoke - Paperback

by Conon Parks (Author)

The story of a man named Walter and his paranoid adventures in Seattle. When readers first meet Walter, he rummages through his mail, finding mostly junk that includes an offer for a magical Soviet elixer and a chain letter promising large sums of money. After a letter containing a quote from Nostradamus convinces Walter that he is "being stalked like a little rabbit," he decides to flee. And what better destination than a "bunker of a building graced under the banner name of the New Museum of Hysteria and Indecision and the We B Art Gallery"? This is where the Manifesto Party, a leftist libertine crew (free guns and dope for life) resides and holds court There, he meets Mac the night-watchman, who can discuss the Baader-Meinhoff gang, quote Gen. George Patton, make quick work of a punching bag, and cool himself off with a beer after the effort. Casting his lot with Mac, Walter finds himself involved in the Seattle underworld, complete with drugs---"It's all in the democratization of cocaine, don't you see?" Mac says---weapons and an assortment of left-wing ideas: "the power of the workers is not rooted in organization, but in disruption,"one character comments. As increasingly strange characters and events are added to this simmering pot of madness, how it will all end is anyone's guess, particularly in later chapters when the World Trade Organization sets upon Seattle as the protests commence and the riots break out.