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Walter

looks out again, with broke heart, through the dingy window, ever since she went away, out across at the L train going by heading to Manhattan...

Everything That Was

by Conon Parks, Chris Sempek, Mike MacNeil, 2022

“From the poetry, cruelty, and folly, readers may pull their hair out, scream, cryout of pity, and laugh-all at the same time-while experience the jest, drift, and irony of it all."

Chapter 3
THE NUMBING

EVERYTHING THAT WAS

...as AB Andre looks out the taffrail, straining at the capstan; as he hears the trumpets and the hammering drum...grabbing a sextant, he watches for cetaceans...seeking the ambergris of life, with his 'body o death' appearance, he realizes:

like solitude--water is great, but too much...will drown you.

He reminisces back from not too long ago. To relative civilization. Before his escape. Aware that disintegration is something that happens to everything. 

...He shares with others on the training ground what it is to be a volunteer...a volunteer is somebody who didn't understand the question. 

Chapter 5
SAVE THE WORLD

EVERYTHING THAT WAS

...The neighborhood sweet Judy Jane landed in looked like the burnt up set for Westside Story after a storm, a bad one. Windows blown out. Doors boarded up. Trash all over. But the Missionaries of Charities row of brownstones were neat and a haven. A vegetable garden within walls was a surprise.

After that Judy found herself in northern California living in a tree - to save it.

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EXPERIENCE

Author Conon Parks presents the most politically bold of the trilogy, and the most tender in its humanity...

explore

The odyssey of a disparate, unhinged group of drifters, dreamers, desperadoes and degenerates seeking their fortune...

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DISCOVER

Author Conon Parks presents the story of a hunted man named Walter who seeks refuge in the no-man's land of downtown Seattle...

WHAT PEOPLE SAY

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A raucous, if at times difficult, literary concoctin in a bizarre world of radicals.

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Parks emplys a deep, long knowledge of Seattle...with a dreamy, druggy, deepdiving narrative. 

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The chaos that can encompass  one's existance shines throughout the pages...

REVIEWS


"A raucous, if at times difficult, literary concoction in a bizarre world of radicals."

KIRKUS REVIEWS / EMPTY BOTTLE OF SMOKE, CONON PARKS

"Parks employs a deep, long knowledge of Seattle...with a dreamy, druggy, deepdiving narrative."

SEATTLE REVIEW OF BOOKS / EMPTY BOTTLE OF SMOKE, CONON PARKS

"An unapologetically manic and original novel about a drifter who heads for the Aleutian Islands in the 1980s."

KIRKUS REVIEWS / SOME KIND OF ENDING, CONON PARKS

"The chaos that can encompass one’s existence shines throughout the pages of Some Kind of Ending....The characters are all on a collision course, but where will they intersect? Will there be anyone left in the aftermath? "

SAN FRANCISCO BOOK REVIEW / EMPTY BOTTLE OF SMOKE, CONON PARKS

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