The story of a hunted man named Walter who seeks refuge in the no-man's land of downtown Seattle in an old funky warehouse called the New Museum of Indecision and Hysteria and We B Art Gallery. The is where the Vigilance Committee for the Manifesto Party, a leftist libertine crew (free guns & dope for life) reside and hold court.
Walter meets Mac, the night-watchman who introduces him to a cast of wild characters as they tarry forth on an odyssey of mad adventures, filled with political intrigue and incoherent vice - into the underbelly of the city; just in time for the World Trade Organization to set upon Seattle as the protests commence and the riots break out.
Praise for Empty Bottle of Smoke
"...this simmering pot of madness..."
"...a raucous...literary concoction in a bizarre world of radicals."
"In a stream-of-consciousness prose style reminiscent of Ginsberg’s howling, debut author Conon Parks pulls the reader into the world of the collective disenfranchised, albeit one with an absurdist twist. And with a clever sleight of hand the author guides his seemingly inconsequential hero, Walter “everyman,” through a world of madness on a quest for life’s meaning."
