New Novel: No Such Zone

I've just published my 3rd novel in the last year and a half. They are variations on a theme, I suppose. Here's the blurb:

A man overhears a conversation in an emptied office building, a conversation among the elites at the Company. It is a conversation filled with greed and malignant subterfuge. It becomes apparent to one of the conspirators that the man has heard them. He sets out to make what he’s heard known, and they set out to keep him quiet. What follows is a murderous cat and mouse game moving back and forth from the valley to ever higher in the mountains, and an emergent love.

Here's where you can find it:
https://www.lulu.com/shop/doug-downie/no-such-zone/paperback/product-yvrr5kd.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Here's the cover:

 

Demise of a Despot

 

Our despot must expire

it could happen any number of ways

 

in the way of Caesar, and the 20 Senators

in the way of Verwoerd, in the halls of government

in the way of Gaddafi, in a hole in the ground

in the way of Adolf, in an underground bunker

in the way of Heydrich, in a roadside car

in the way of Oswald, in front of cameras

in the way of the Czar, against a wall

in the way of Shinzo Abe, on a podium

in the way of Mussolini, left to hang like a polyp

in the way of Louis the King, absent his head

in the way of Juvénal Habyarimana, pricked from the sky

in the way of any of these ways, or one of the many other ways that are possible

 

Our despot must expire

rotten fruit must fall

but the harvest is best when the fruit is ripe

Message

 

I wonder if I wrote a note to the White House

something I do on occasion

and I said to Trump

though I know it’s only the interns

who may or may not be rabid

 

eat

shit

and die

 

Would even that snide but harmless statement

bring the Storm Troopers down upon me?

It just might

the cruelest pettiness is the order of the day

 

eat

shit

and die

 

motherfucker

 

it has a nice ring to it

My books

 Here they are, an even dozen. 

Cat Came Back and Other Stories: short stories and a short novel.

Two Trains Running: novel set in the US and in South Africa.

Stockboy: collection of short stories with a through line and novelistic thematic connections.

God Awful Acres: novel set in South Africa.

The Meeting: novel about love connections.

No One to Blame: collection of short stories and poems.

Neighbors: vignettes about a neighborhood, and three story/essays.

Cycads, Weevils and Africa: non-fiction about research in entomology and evolution on the title subjects in Africa.

Bits off Burning Bridges: short, short pieces that are not quite poetry.

Bits Too: more short, short pieces that are not quite poetry.

Diminuendo: novel of family, murder, and escape.

Off Minor: short novel of bank robberies, fugitive life, and love.

Buy here:

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/dadownie1

also at Amazon et al.

 

Prop 50

 

On California Prop 50: It stinks. It reeks of all that I hate about how people distort, twist, and manipulate facts all the while claiming to be promoting democracy. Anyone—anyone—who hopes for a more robust and functioning democracy, not to mention a more perfect union, will cringe at the thought of this miserable proposition.

Gerrymandering—along with the Electoral College, the dominance of big money, propaganda and disinformation in the media, the distorted structure of the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the piss-poor civic education of our children—is one of the major assaults on the basic tenets of democracy, republican or otherwise.

But of course, a functioning democracy is also one where citizens use the little power they have in a strategic fashion. One must hold one’s nose for a little while in order to get a little bit of what one wants.

In this case, we have the absolutely genuine threat of the anti-democratic power mongers having no compunction about rigging the system in order to impose their vision on the population—like it or not. We must do the same, or they win. It’s compelling.

It can become an endless regress though, failing to return to the promised outcome. Without the people…the citizens…supporting the more democratic option on their own, rejecting the pressure of their braying leaders, regardless of political party, there is little hope for much that’s worth while in any case.

So I’m sitting this one out. That’s my vote.

 I've published another novel, the second this year. It's short at 130 pages. The snoots might call it a novella, or worse, a novelette. It's just a short novel. It'll be on Amazon et al. in a couple months. Meanwhile: https://www.lulu.com/.../paperback/product-kvdz9wk.html...

 

The Murder of Charlie Kirk

 

The murder of Charlie Kirk was sad. It is also sad to see the misspent tributes cropping up like weeds, to a figure who advocated for an exclusionary vision of not just America, but of a wider world that would forbid and cast out human beings narrowly considered deviant, or simply unacceptable—to their particular community—which deems itself the arbiter of right and wrong, good and evil. A community that tries to impose on others, who are actually a majority, the stale and ancient dictums contained in a chaotic and contradictory collection of writings of desert pastoralists living in a tiny portion of the earth many, many centuries ago. Those in this community are able, without shame, to meld the greed of the Gilded Age to carefully selected passages from these murky ancient ramblings to justify further levels of exclusion and cruelty.

The murder of Charlie Kirk was sad, as is any other murder. It was neither sadder nor more heinous than any other murder, and it does not deserve any greater level of mourning than any other murder.

I’m not convinced that Charlie Kirk was truly committed to open and free discourse. Such a commitment would mean a person is open to changing or amending their position on being confronted with convincing arguments. I think he was more supremely self-confident and eager to bowl over opponents or challengers with the depth of his convictions and details he amassed in support of them (not without a strong dose of confirmation bias). His shtick was more performance than debate. Did he ever change a position? Admit he was wrong? Maybe he did. I’ve only skimmed a few of his podcasts and clips.