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HOME PAGE
Hi
Welcome to my website.
You will find excerpts from my book of short stories Smash Palace,
and from novels Altered Boy and Counterculture
Revolution.
I am pleased to announce the publication of my debut novel Altered
Boy. You can
own a copy by simply clicking the “Buy Now” button. I will sign your
book, adding a personalized message.
Altered
Boy
Altered Boy is
based on actual events.
Clergy abuse is an explosive issue, but no novelist has explored this
problem. Until now.
Get inside the mind of Father John Damon to discover what makes him
tick. Set in 1960, this psychological thriller is about a gang of teen
street hustlers—Mickey, Joey, and Shorty—who think new priest Father
Damon is an easy mark. But who’s conning who here?
Using the alias Mike Smith, Damon rents an apartment across town as a
refuge from the pressures of priesthood, and as a party pad for naïve
teens. The superintendent, vivacious Yohana, complicates his life by
falling in love with “Mike.”
The Oscar-winning best movie of the year Spotlight involves the
same issues that define Altered Boy.
Smash Palace
“Smash Palace is Jim McDonald’s work of short story
fiction, its themes spanning various genres: crime, science fiction,
coming of age, family conflict, sex, cats, dystopia, and surrealisms.”
“Smash Palace will intrigue you with adventure, wit, and
unforgettable characters.”
Counterculture Revolution
Allison Krause was a nineteen-year-old student at Ohio’s Kent State
University (KSU) in 1970. When President Nixon, instead of ending the
war in Vietnam, expanded it by invading Cambodia, thousands of angry
anti-war protests erupted all over the world. After the president of KSU
brought in the Ohio National Guard, thousands of protesting students
confronted the stony-faced armed guards. Allison said to one young
guardsman, “What’s the matter with peace? Flowers are better than
bullets.” The next day, May 4, she was killed by a guardsman’s bullet.
In 1970 Mickey Kelly, the protagonist of Altered Boy, is ten
years older, a recent journalism graduate from Detroit’s Wayne State
University, across the river from Windsor. Mickey lands a job as combat
photographer, and spends nine weeks in Vietnam, a witness to, and
participant in, the unspeakable horrors of war.
Back in Windsor-Detroit, his sister Jayna’s husband, a Vietnam vet
hooked on heroin, dies of an overdose. His death steels Jayna’s resolve
to end the war, and she joins Weatherman, an activist organization that
vows to “bring the war home.” She quits her job, leaves her home, and
disappears. Mickey sets off in search of his sister.
Meanwhile, hapless student Lloyd Purdy is arrested in possession of a
pound of marijuana. Rather than spend years in jail, Lloyd agrees to
assist the FBI as an informer. They want him to locate various wanted
Weathermen in hiding.
Weatherman was a radical left-wing domestic terror group active in the
late 1960s and 1970s, founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University
of Michigan.
Lloyd infiltrates the Weatherman group, and supplies information that
causes death and chaos. He tips off the FBI that Jayna and her militia
group plan to bomb a draft board. FBI agents surround the draft board,
and the Weathermen must battle their way out. During the shootout, her
close friend and comrade is killed. The rest
narrowly escape, and go underground. Mickey is on their trail, one step
ahead of the FBI.
When Mickey hears that Jayna is at Kent State to protest Nixon’s
invasion of Cambodia, he goes to Kent, Ohio, hoping to convince his
sister to come home. Lloyd Purdy is also in Kent on a mission for the
FBI. On May 4, 1970, as Mickey searches for Jayna among the outraged
demonstrators, he must dive for cover when the Ohio National Guard open
fire. After thirteen seconds and 67 shots four students fall dead, and
nine are injured.
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