ATWOOD - A Toiler's Weird Odyssey of Deliverance

ATWOOD: A Toiler's Weird Odyssey of Deliverance employs imaginative fiction blended with historical truths to depict the development of an isolated county in the northwest corner of the state. The story, in which the mundane tasks of community building are twisted by the influences that have combined to yield one of the most peculiar hybrid cultures in the world today, illustrates America's psychological landscape from the ground up. It pays particular attention to the outsized influence that Kansas has had in American history and political and religious thought. It describes those linkages between the ethereal and the practical that have been so vital to the development of the United States of America in all of its weirdness. Readers from every culture and background will find entertainment and insight in this epic tale of surrealism, inner and public exploration. Book One of the ATWOOD Trilogy introduces an array of unforgettable characters: Moritz Black, who some call "the Gypsy" and others "the Gardener", who watches over lost souls at the gateway to the underworld Vilokan; New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, who urges the White population to the plains; Dobby Leitner, the outcast Jew, whose magical connection with the Royal Secret transforms old "No. 12" station into an important trading center, and who leads the local Grange movement; the Blue Brothers, the cannibals of the Smoky Hills; Rooker, the mysterious hustler whose macabre displays court death; Pale Lightning, who gifts the Indians with bison while overseeing a group of underworld beings; the Tiny People Eaters, beyond anyone's control; the Vl?eks, whose pact with the Zalîk Ze?a, Slyph and Krivopeta are tied to the bells that adorn their mule Victor; Rev. A. S. Thorne, whose epic poem "The Toiler" is the foundation of the Thorne Brother Ministries; Kate Cochran, who dares public hysteria and societal convention to care for a family perishing from diphtheria; Chauncey Dewey and the Berry brothers, whose gunfight marks the end of the old west; and many more.