Hayden Williams had one true love. Her death sent him on an odyssey that lasted lifetimes. After discovering the fatal effects of a hallucinogenic fingernail polish on teen nail-biters, Hayden's duties as a consumer protection agent take him to Miami to investigate a get-rich-quick real estate guru. In a world of trailer parks and weight loss clinics, he meets a beautiful waitress who reawakens his desires. But Hayden is haunted by visions of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and impending doom. A mystery ship armed with nuclear warheads sends Floridians into a panic, forcing Hayden to take shelter in a fortune teller's basement. After a ménage a trois with death, he acquires the ability to recall his past lives. A century later, while working as a bounty hunter, Hayden finds himself in a future of genetically engineered beasts, cloned wives, massive fly storms, and cities made of trash. When crossing the harsh landscapes near Death Bay to rescue a friend from a deadly plot, he meets a powerful figure who dons the faces of Christ and Buddha, and a hitchhiking ghost reveals his true destiny. Hayden must accomplish a nearly impossible metaphysical feat, employing the help of good souls he meets along the way, including Mr. Utamaro, Medicine Woman, and Quixote. Reminiscent of the works of Kurt Vonnegut and Phillip K. Dick, Dance Party for Electric Eels is an imaginative exploration of the sacredness of life, the treachery of mind, and the fluidity of reality. It is an adventure told in a humorous, tragic, and redemptive voice.
About the Author: The author was born in Los Angeles in the atomic age the year Disneyland opened. He grew up in the arid land of the San Gabriel Valley. As a boy, he was kidnapped by a rattlesnake. Days later he escaped, and returned home a changed person. He played in ravines and fields where he met lizards and insects, many now extinct. The fields and ravines are extinct too, buried under the Pomona freeway. He grew up in the 60's absorbing the revolution but was drawn to a secret behind the world. He became a fire-eater but singed his soul, then sought the salve of gurus, yogis and wild people-even a medicine man with a 700-pound lion. He witnessed violence but found a passage to the sweet empire of light. He worked in factories. He was a salesman and a builder. He became a real estate investor and a wandering poet. He can build stone walls and prune fruit trees. He has planted many gardens. He was formed by wind, sunny beaches and turbulent seas. He married beauty but longing is his mistress. He wrote it all down. The author is active in many dimensions. He sells vegan tacos in 1975 off a cart in Venice Beach with his yogini stripper girlfriend. In 2084 he wears a dust covered coat while searching for himself in ruins of a burned-out cryogenics lab. The author sees how mind can be a panic room and a house of mirrors. He knows mind is a clanking carnival of roller coasters, fortune tellers, and shouting children. The mind is a crumbling pier stretching to Western sun. It smells of creosote and cotton candy. It's covered with barnacles and black mussels. It's seen from beneath by free-spirited surfers, and from above by transcendent mind, which is like a pelican's POV with primordial eyes gazing down on a swirling world. The author has always lived in California. He is part of the westward movement pushing to new frontiers. He renounces the world as he embraces it. He hopes to meet you someday. He hopes it will be an ordinary meeting, and you both notice how extraordinary ordinary is. He thinks it is strange to meet you here out of all infinite time and space. He is very glad you have come.