Say hello to 75-year-old Casey Weatherhogg.
A retired Scranton High School chemistry teacher and 1967 University of California at Berkeley graduate, Casey once followed the Grateful Dead.
Now he follows Joe Biden into the White House as “The Power,” as writer Tom Wolfe called it, bears down on Scranton, the birthplace and childhood home of America’s soon-to-be 46th president.
Casey mistrusts Biden. Casey hates the system. Casey wants to spread truth and light in hard coal country but doesn’t know how… until he does, of course.
Man, does he ever figure it out.
Thus shapes the bones of Scranton Lives Matter! a scrappy kind of novel and free online serialization starting Monday at theoutlawcorbett.com website where I’ll post a new chapter every Monday and Friday until the end.
That sounds ominous because it is ominous.
The novel tells the tale of a city born of ashes and coal dust, a town always on the ropes in one way or another because of money and politics. Political corruption remains the lifeblood of the city.
Despite a hip new mayor, the city’s first female, The Power flows like the creature in The Blob, the 1958 horror movie that oozes sticky, clinging mayhem through every cultural crevasse of our town.
Professional Joe Biden impersonator Timmy Kelly wants his piece of The Power. Prison guard Gino Maraschino wants to cash in, too. Who knew Black blood flowed through Gino’s veins until Timmy Kelly laid out why the family pedigree mattered? Timmy’s sister, Shannon has already carved out her piece of The Power during a hot affair with married Lackawanna County President Judge Stanley “Stash” Dombroski. Federal penitentiary inmate and former Scranton Mayor Harry “The Ninja” Davies has a comeback plan as well.
Like her son, Casey’s 95-year-old pot-smoking militant senior citizen mother Mabel hates the Establishment, too.
Together, these characters provide an inside look at a city and a nation on the verge of greatness or implosion. Scranton is but a microcosm of the national chaos that now defines our republic.
Don’t miss chapter one in Monday’s news blog.
News?
Is this novel really news?
Is Joe Biden really scrappy?
Scranton Lives Matter!
