JUDGING A BOOK BY ITS COVER

The cover art is one of my paintings, representing the five major faiths as seeds in The Hand of God. Each is a potential Eden, and given the abundance of nature, each seed has the potential to germinate and create an infinite number of future gardens. Spirituality plays a central role in my work, which will expose and infuriate the political establishment, the religious right, and the wealthy elite. I believe it is proper and crucial to do so, especially at this time in our country's ongoing evolution.

Many of us are concerned that America is in deep trouble; and while we are arguably the greatest country on Earth, we are evidently in decline. Hopefully this is only a temporary turn of events; but there is ample evidence that we should beware; we should count upon ourselves; and press our government for more conscious decisions and policy making.

Those who live outside our borders do not see or know us as once we knew ourselves. Ironically, the developing nations vainly seek to emulate us; striving to wallow in extravagance like American has; building ever taller and grander, gulping petrochemicals and digging for coal and gold and abusing their environment, growing genetically engineered crops, gorging on fast food and Coca Cola and the 'luxury' of excess. But we have been down that smooth highway. It is a course to gluttony and gout.

However, it is not enough to know such things intellectually, particularly if we continue to be fools for our own greed and excess. If we grow ever fatter and softer, and cannot control our own appetite for more, how can we expect China and India and Brazil and Mexico (or anyone else) to behave any differently? The people in other countries are no less deserving than we are. We are exceptionally lucky to live here in the United States, of all places on Earth. There are reasons for our success; and our predicament, not the least of which is the ravenous and narrow minded world wide network media and our entrenched political machine. That is not who we are. We maintain a great, hidden strength in our people. America is her citizens. We are not the machine.

When Pigs Fly and The Fat Lady Sings are the first two novels in a trilogy of provocative fiction about American society, our people, and our national substance. Funny and relevant and current and pregnant with a reality you live amongst every day of your life, this book is not politically correct. It is about people without veneer, real life in a real world, relationships, spirituality, love, dreams, memories, broken hearts, baseball, politics, power, the energy crisis; taxation without representation, our global U.S. colonial warmongering footprint, the savaged environment, government suppression, the erosion of our constitutional rights; the failing dollar, the fraudulent financial system, and our crumbling empire. It is about the quandary in the Middle East, old soldiers and new combatants; dogmatic religious mania, zealots, terrorism,and the dubious war to extinguish it. It speaks eloquently of success and failure, gratuitous substance abuse, the delicate dervish between men and women; uncensored sex; lots of soul searching and personal revelation; inner peace, world peace,and the Devil, who spins a pretty good sermon himself.