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.
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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
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"...this simmering pot of madness..."
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"...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."
