a novel, by Thor Garcia

ISBN 978-0-9571213-2-4. Paperback. 477pp. Publication date: April 2012. Equus Press: London.

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“Fuelled by prodigious amounts of alcohol and tobacco, sex and drugs, this narrative skips along from one bizarre episode to the next in the tortuous life of Thor, a young man whose dreams of a literary career have been sidetracked into an undemanding job as a ‘news clown’ for a small wire service in the crime-infested back alleys of Bay City. Meanwhile, as Thor struggles with his inner demons, the national news clowns are cheering on President Wolfgang G. Mnung as he threatens a Middle Eastern dictator who may have stockpiled ‘as many as 4,000 PlayStation video game units’ from which, according to sources, he might fashion a crude supercomputer to control weapons of untold devastation. A flashy, satirical style keeps the narrative fresh, entertaining and eminently readable throughout.””Fclowns are cheering on President Wolfgang G. Mnung as he threatens a Middle Eastern dictator who may have stockpiled ‘as many as 4,000 PlayStation video game units’ from which, according to sources, he might fashion a crude supercomputer to control weapons of untold devastation. A flashy, satirical style keeps the narrative fresh, entertaining and eminently readable throughout.” —Publishers Weekly

“THE NEWS CLOWN is punchy, raw, written in the tight, sinewy fashion of classic news wire service feed. Tension abounds between self-promotion and self-awareness. And it is funny as hell. THE NEWS CLOWN – a story of the smells, the sounds, the fears and petty triumphs in the life of the street reporter. THE NEWS CLOWN – a darkly-lit portrait of the USA during the War On Terror, from the bloodstained ghetto street to the celebrity ball, from the White House to the glass super-cathedral and the death-row execution chamber.”—Fire Books

“Hunter S. Thompson, eat your dead heart out!”—Phil Shoenfelt (author of Junkie Love)

“The News Clown is perhaps one of the most realistic, best written and truthful US novels of the last 25 years.”—Jim Chaffee (author of American Dream)

“A tapestry of a post-apocalyptic society whose debt-bound, clueless denizens are so anaesthetized from noise, shopping and drugs, prescription or otherwise, that they are unaware the calamity they fear as bogyman has already overtaken them.”—Jim Chaffee, nthposition

“Thor Garcia has written a satirical novel that brings to mind the best bits of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces; the novels and short stories of Charles Bukowski; Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho and the gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson.”—Chris Crawford, BODY

“It’s hard to imagine writing more energetic than this!”—The Prague Post

“Hunter S. Thompson meets Russ Meyer’s Under the Valley of the Supervixens meets Daft Punk — wearing a press pass and a smiley badge to a San Francisco gangbang.” Goodreads

Thor Garcia’s monumental iconoclastic novel, News Clown, was a finalist in the 2009 Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award.

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