Motorman Series by David Ohle
Motorman #1
Motorman
David Ohle
"It is curious that a reprint could be heroic. It is more curious that a book this good could go out of print so quickly. And it is most curious that an introduction would even be required for a novel that, if you examine it carefully in the right kind oflight, might actually be seen to be steaming. MOTORMAN is a central work, pulsing with mythology, created by a craftsman of language who was seemingly channeling the history of narrative when he wrote it. It is a book about the future that comes from the past, and we are caught in its amazing middle. To read MOTORMAN now is to encouter proof that a book can be both emotional and eccentric, smeared with humanity and artistically ambitious, messy with grief and dazzling with spectacle"--Ben Marcus, from his introduction."...all is not right in this world of incessant, pointless surveillance, petty bureaucratic meanness, decay and graft and moral inertia. All is not right inside Moldenke, either, and that's obvious not just from the arrhythmia in his four sheep hearts but from the arrhythmia in the narrative, its stutter and lurch. By the end of the book, we have lost track of time (easy to do in a world where six "technical months" can pass in a single day), and neither we nor Moldenke knows exactly what has been going on. Moldenke thinks he might have let the goo out of a pair of jellyheads with a letter opener. Or was it a screwdriver? It's dizzying but exhilarating for a reader to be given so much room to play. A typical mobile might seem too pretty an image to serve as a descriptive metaphor for a book by Ohle, but I have a different image in mind. A friend from high school once called me in tears: He was trying to make a mobile out of dead bugs but was having trouble bringing them into balance. If he had succeeded, that mobile might resemble this book: delicate and grotesque, tragic and hilarious, precarious but perfectly balanced." -Shelley Jackson, from a review in BookForumAbout the AuthorDavid Ohle's first novel, MOTORMAN (Calamari Press), was first published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1972 under the now-legendary editorial aegis of Gordon Lish. His short fiction has appeared in Harper's, Esquire, the Paris Review, and elsewhere. A native of New Orleans, Ohle now lives in Lawrence, Kansas, and teaches at the University of Kansas. His last name rhymes with "holy."
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Motorman #2
The Age of Sinatra
David Ohle
The sequel to the 1972 cult classic Motorman.Part political allegory, part sci-fi dystopia, the world Ohle creates is disturbing, yet humorous and oddly compelling. After the most recent Forgetting, Ohle’s luckless protagonist Moldenke is in possession of only his name and the bare facts of his former life. He finds himself cruising on the Titanic through a bizarre alternate reality where elective deformation is a fashion trend, neucs and human settlers do their best to live together in relative harmony, and the only available sustenance is stomach churning.Everyone agrees the Stinkers are troublesome and something must be done. President Ratt not only fails to control the Stinker problem, but he also has a penchant for decreeing absurd laws and issuing random vouchers of innocence. Violators with valid vouchers defer their punishments to guiltless bystanders—regulations that land Moldenke and his fellows in prison more than once.Rumors are circulating that another Forgetting is imminent and that the Forgettings are induced by Ratt’s radio broadcasts. The prison guard Montfaucon emerges as Ratt’s political rival, and Moldenke, ever the yes-man, finds himself inadvertently involved in a plot to assassinate the president. The rebels hope to return to the Age of Sinatra, “when happiness was not only considered achievable, but hailed as the ideal state of being.”Review “The legendary author of Motorman is back. In The Age of Sinatra, David Ohle is so attuned to reality that he has invented a brand new world to reflect it. Whereas what is generally called realistic fiction is busy cataloging what we wear and buy, Ohle is documenting our last secrets, and he’s doing it with droll hilarity, brilliance, and a genuinely original vision.” —Ben Marcus, author of Notable American Women, The Father Costume, and The Age of Wire & String “Ohle’s visceral world splices together such diversities as Rabelaisian humor, schizophrenia, science fiction, a twisted version of the Kennedy assassination, necronauts, conspiracy theory, aphasia, genetic manipulation, surrealism, the Titanic, cyperpunk, the French sewers, gland eating, hair smoking, pig hearts, and a constantly shifting system of law to create a hilarious yet compelling dystopia. A beautifully strange novel, imbued with nervous laughter and serious social critique, The Age of Sinatra is a startling book, excessive in all the right ways.” —Brian Evenson, author of Altmanns Tongue and The Wavering Knife "In The Age of Sinatra, Ohle has seemingly concocted some sort of covert Oulipian recipe regarding the fantastic versus realism. Readers should take note of this insurgent fiction writer, David Ohle, who flays the human condition to singular, hallucinatory effect." - The Village Voice "Delicate and grotesque, tragic and hilarious, precarious but perfectly balanced...The Age of Sinatra, a litany of symptoms, is less like an ordinary novel than it is like a patient history. But those might be the stories we feel most keenly of all." - Shelley Jackson "Ohle continues to construct an intoxicatingly vivid and demented world that is both reflective and revolutionary." - LA WeeklyAbout the AuthorDavid Ohle's first novel, Motorman, was published by Knopf in 1972. His short fiction has appeared in Harper's, Esquire and the Paris Review. A native of New Orleans, Ohle now lives in Lawrence, Kansas, and teaches at the University of Kansas.
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