Miss June, nee June Carol Stipe, is the once-voluptuous lead singer in a rather mediocre country band. She is one of several fame-seeking pilgrims on a convoluted journey that takes the WildCard's from a life of local obscurity to a weekend of regional pride. In addition to Miss June, the eclectic group includes the reprobate son of a devout, bar-hopping Evangelical, a fiercely independent auto mechanic who happens to use a wheelchair; the politically beholden supervisor of the town landfill; and the prep-schooled, prodigal son of an affluent local family. The journey is conceived by Harry Holmes (aka YingYang), a curiously disordered neighbor who runs a trailer park and fancies himself an expert on Eastern spiritual philosophy in all its forms and follies
The journey takes place on a number of levels in time and space, following an uncharted and meandering river of alchohol. The physical journey consists of a road trip to play for a party at an Adirondack ski lodge. The party is an annual celebration of the full moon and the death of a regular customer five years earlier. The band manages to hold together long enough to drive a raucous costume party both indoors and out. The metaphysical journey, guided in large measure by the mystery of YingYang, takes them through an examination of the artificial dualities of everyday experience: life and death, love and hate, heaven and hell, past and future, and -- of course -- male and female. Everyone learns that what you see may not be what you get.
About the Author
Victor Smith is a writer living in an upstate New York town much like the fictitious hilltowns where the story takes place. He also plays in a rural string band which, only coincidentally, merits a passing comparison to the ficticious WildCard's. His novel Huntington Pass is available from AuthorHouse or your local independent bookstore.
