Modern
Hobbies Book Blurb
Modern
Hobbies
follows forty-five-year-old narrator, Lawrence Thorne, a disgruntled employee
of Pittsburgh-based super company Graffius Co.
Lawrence has been punching the numbers for twenty years, his body
deteriorating in a similar fashion until a new test program offers the chance
to up his productivity. The small silver
injections every week give the recipient a much-needed boost in all the wrong
directions, Lawrence being one of nine dummy employees receiving their first
dose.
Lost in an inevitable swirl of
collected nostalgia tied to his deceased girlfriend, Bianca Deist, employee
Thorne initially shows few improvements.
However, the spark comes in several forms by Friday. Lawrence’s livelong friend, the
recently-divorced Grace Emerson, returns to the Burg, soon seducing him into
hysterics. Unsure of his feelings, he
desperately considers quitting his job and selling off his hobbies.
Internal tensions skyrocket
following news of his Cousin Wesley’s suicide in their hometown of Atterbury,
Indiana. Returning to his roots with an
unlikely ingredient inside, Lawrence Thorne is propelled into a depleted world
of familiar faces and clever ploys in a place he hardly recognizes. Haunted hotel rooms and alluring teen
prostitute, Megan Bartina, are but half of the problems before the flood and
his showdown with crazed legend, Motorcycle Frank Dribble. Lawrence subsequently loses his cool;
collected habits amounting to very little while lost in the eye of the storm.
Modern
Hobbies
is the tale of accumulated memories tied to the staying quality of inanimate
objects. Lawrence Thorne stands firm as
one of the last survivors of a non-digital age, inevitably imprisoned by a
thickened experiment meant to propel the human race forward, while still taking
them two steps back. Amongst his jilted
ego, a frantic rebel resides waiting for the inappropriate moment to lash out
on society before his insides do so first.
The subsequent consequences are beneficial albeit crippling to the
fading mementos meticulously catalogued on his shelves.
Author’s
Bio
Christopher S. Bell has been writing and releasing literary and musical works
through My Idea of Fun since 2008. His
sound projects include Emmett and Mary, Technological Epidemic, C. Scott and
the Beltones, and Fine Wives. My Idea of
Fun is an art and music collective based out of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. (www.myideaoffun.org) . Christopher’s work has recently been
published in The Broadkill Review, Mobius and Fringelit.com. He is also a contributor to Impression of
Sound.
Links
www.myideaoffun.org/chrisbell
www.myideaoffun.org
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