The Great Roach Race: A Novel of Broken Pieces Sung in Twisted Tongue - Softcover

Munch, John G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1629671193 ISBN 13: 9781629671192

Publisher: Wise Media Group, 2018

Synopsis

The Great Roach Race - Black & White 6 X 9 edition The Great Roach Race is a literary collage with elements of magical realism and dark humor set along the Caribbean coast of Latin America, and spanning a time frame between 1893 and 2003. This is the story of Mama Guerty, a Panamanian bruja, and Jedidiah Lynch, the adopted child of a family of engineers and land surveyors who have emigrated to the tropics from the American Midwest. By day Guerty sees to the needs and comfort of whores working two competing saloon-brothels in a small banana port, while by night she provides spells, counter-spells, and unguents to aid disturbed clients, both living and dead, who come to her to find relief from a variety of sexual and spiritual dysfunctions. Her counterpart is Jedidiah Lynch, who as an infant was found living in a mangrove swamp with a family of three-toed sloth. Jedidiah is trapped between two worlds: on the one hand, he is a product of the strict rationalistic intellect of his adoptive family, but on the other hand, Jedidiah has been shaped by the uncertain origins of his bloodline, and with a soul ensnared by a wild and unruly world filled with idle rascals, mischievous spirits and noisome haints. This is also the story of the three Lynch brothers who fled the Great Depression and personal scandals of the north in an attempt at reclaiming lost fortune by draining swamps, and otherwise turning jungle into well-ordered farms. At its roots, this is ultimately the story of Jedidiah’s struggle to uncover his origins via a pathway for communion between the living and the dead. Ultimately, The Great Roach Race is a preternaturnal conversation between a dead dog’s tongue and Guerty’s straw hat, a hat that answers all questions using the voice of chittering black beetles suspended by thread tethers from the tattered brim.

About this title

About the Author

John G. Munch is by profession a winemaker. Ironically he was born in Costa Rica, a country not known for grapes, & idled away his youth in various disreputable banana ports along the Caribbean coast of Central America. After several years spent traveling throughout the Americas & Europe for his health, John ultimately emigrated to California's Central Coast where he has gained modest notoriety as the founder of several failed wineries. Being cognizant of the untidy number of abortive undertakings dogging his past, & acknowledging the occasional bouts of difficulty he has encountered in the wine trade, John has picked up the author's pen in later life with the hope of gaining a modicum of fiscal security beyond the realm of perfidious wine grapes & the predaceous reach of creditors. As he anxiously awaits international acclaim for The Great Roach Race, he reluctantly continues to subsist within his capacity as co-owner of the Le Cuvier Winery in Paso Robles, California. Take pity & buy the fool's books.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wise Media Group
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1629671193
• ISBN 13: 9781629671192
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 332