Is there a serial killer of poets on the loose and does he have Carl Wendt, poet, autodidact, professional cynic, flaneur, and conman in his sights? Poets are dropping like flies. Wait a minute, they are flies! Laying their eggs in the corpses of dead poets and claiming the results as great literature.

 

 Ode To Sunset is not a mystery, it’s an enigma!
and a fiction about dying and death, about a poet who is not quite Charles Baudelaire, not quite Charles Bukowski, who looks like a well worn Alex Trebeck but with the pit bull demeanor of a Mickey Rourke.  It mostly takes place in a city not always quite Frisco.  It is satirical, playful, and inevitably deadly serious.

What they’re saying about Ode To Sunset, A Year in the Life of American Genius

 “Required reading for the jaded and cynical, all others need not risk permanent damage to their innocence.”
— Norm Mansill, author of I, Object

“Oprah?  No way!”
—Jonathan Frozen, author of Pithy Me

“A roman à clef of entirely inconsequential characters.”
—Cody Andresque, author of D Before Ada

“Not again. . .again. . .again. . .”
—David Foster Frieze, author of Infinite, I  Guess

“The double edge sword of satire cuts the wielder’s nose off in spite of itself.”
—Georgette A. Cabot, author of What Bear, What Mountain?

“I blame Northern California.”
—Tom Pitchin, author of Inherit The Vice

“A Freudian amusement park of slips and slides through an unconscious phallic obstacle course.”
—Ted Ecoli, author of Burger Bomb, A Guide to Gastronomical Terrorism

“A torrid tango of self-fractured will.”
—Jonathan Le Them, author of Music, With Occasional Gunfire

“You have to want to read this book for no other reason than it was written.”
—Michelle Backdin, author of Terms Of Collusion

”Rough, awkward, ultimately compelling. . .a public confession to no one in particular.”
—Kevin Sting, author  of Carry It, Shining Misery

“Nothing has done more to define American poetry since the Don Allen anthology.”
—Ruth D. Salmon, author of Pink On The Inside

“Something for everyone, nothing for anyone.”
—Darcy Méchant, author of Je muet

 “Haunted, hinting at genius.”
—Arthur Tchokt, author of This’ll Be Sweet

“Viciously hilarious, hilariously vicious.”
—Clement Samuels, author of Boys And Berries End

 

To consider inflicting this satirical sadism
on your masochistic self go to
Ode To Sunset Contents
to access the full draft manuscript or simply sample a few nasty tidbits.
Otherwise play it safe and read the interviews with the demon author.