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"I know the score in this town. If I did a Joan of Arc and started talking about my voices, I'd get a hotfoot just like she did."
In Reagan's America, Karl August Poppel was destined for a military career until his voices told him to fire a cannon at his parents. He joins Blunderkonk Security, determined to wear a military cap. Karl gets bounced from site to site like a volleyball until he gets the Buckle Building, the company's top contract. It's all beer and skittles...until the building talks to him. Mike Gilhooley, his manager, an ex-cop who drinks his lunch, keeps Poppel on because because he can introduce him to Fiona, an Irish bike messenger he has the hots for. When the building warns Poppel about asbestos in its frame, Poppel, Gilhooley and Fiona have to make hard choices about where their lives are going.
In Reagan's America, Karl August Poppel was destined for a military career until his voices told him to fire a cannon at his parents. He joins Blunderkonk Security, determined to wear a military cap. Karl gets bounced from site to site like a volleyball until he gets the Buckle Building, the company's top contract. It's all beer and skittles...until the building talks to him. Mike Gilhooley, his manager, an ex-cop who drinks his lunch, keeps Poppel on because because he can introduce him to Fiona, an Irish bike messenger he has the hots for. When the building warns Poppel about asbestos in its frame, Poppel, Gilhooley and Fiona have to make hard choices about where their lives are going.
319 pages, Paperback
Published July 30, 2022
About the author
Steven Clark
19 books4 followersWhen did I begin telling stories? Probably when I was a child and, late at night before the blue TV screen (I was born in 1952, so this was in the fifties), Mother was tired of telling me stories so I told her my own as ice tinkled in our tea glasses, and she lay back on the sofa to listen, pillows and blankets nestled around her. She slept on the sofa a lot. it was a tepid marriage.
Before I set pen to paper, a lot of things happened. I did the kid thing. I got an education, went to college for awhile, joined the army and went to Germany. I finished my B.A. at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1980, and became, as a bilious old man said to me one night in the shadows of a Civil War re-enactment, another goddamned English major who thinks he's a writer. I was always an avid reader, but I read more. I observed. Examined. I worked for a couple of police departments, became a cubicle guy (bleeah!), was in the National Guard, went to grad school but came to my senses and quit, then began writing...and rewriting, getting rejected, and writing again.
Samuel Johnson said the purpose of literature is to entertain and teach. I try to do both, but my big task is to keep you interested so you'll keep turning the page or scroll down.
I'm eclectic. I've written short stories, novels, plays, screenplays, memoirs. In 1985 my play The Love Season won a national award. My stories have appeared in Black Oak Presents, Mozark Press, UMSL Litmag, and a story of mine won honorable mention in a Glimmertrain contest. My adaptation of the 1799 gothic novel Edgar Huntly was a finalist in the 2012 St. Louis Cinemaspoke screenwriting contest. In 2014, my screenplay Searching for Jesse was a finalist in the Missouri Stories contest, earning me an internship with three pros from Hollywood. I do what I must to keep you turning the page, and to enjoy the worlds I've built with my words. Give me a try. Like Rick said in Casablanca, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship
Before I set pen to paper, a lot of things happened. I did the kid thing. I got an education, went to college for awhile, joined the army and went to Germany. I finished my B.A. at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1980, and became, as a bilious old man said to me one night in the shadows of a Civil War re-enactment, another goddamned English major who thinks he's a writer. I was always an avid reader, but I read more. I observed. Examined. I worked for a couple of police departments, became a cubicle guy (bleeah!), was in the National Guard, went to grad school but came to my senses and quit, then began writing...and rewriting, getting rejected, and writing again.
Samuel Johnson said the purpose of literature is to entertain and teach. I try to do both, but my big task is to keep you interested so you'll keep turning the page or scroll down.
I'm eclectic. I've written short stories, novels, plays, screenplays, memoirs. In 1985 my play The Love Season won a national award. My stories have appeared in Black Oak Presents, Mozark Press, UMSL Litmag, and a story of mine won honorable mention in a Glimmertrain contest. My adaptation of the 1799 gothic novel Edgar Huntly was a finalist in the 2012 St. Louis Cinemaspoke screenwriting contest. In 2014, my screenplay Searching for Jesse was a finalist in the Missouri Stories contest, earning me an internship with three pros from Hollywood. I do what I must to keep you turning the page, and to enjoy the worlds I've built with my words. Give me a try. Like Rick said in Casablanca, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship
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