The Age Of Sinatra

(Paperback)

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Part political allegory, part sci-fi dystopia, ohle's world is disturbing, witty and oddly compelling. After the most recent Forgetting, Ohle's luckless protagonist Moldenke is in possession of only his name and the bare facts of his former life. He finds himself cruising on the Titanic through a bizarre alternate reality where elective deformation is a fashion trend, non-human and human settlers do their best to live together in relative harmony and the only available sustenance is stomach-churning fare. Everyone agrees the Stinkers are troublesome and something must be done. President Ratt not only fails to control the Stinker problem, but he also has a penchant for decreeing absurd laws and issuing random vouchers of innocence. Violators with valid vouchers defer their punishments to guiltless bystanders - a regulation that lands Moldenke and his fellows in prison more than once. Rumours are circulating that another Forgetting is imminent, and that the Forgettings are induced by Ratt's radio broadcasts. The prison guard Montfaucon emerges as Ratt's political rival, and Moldenke, ever the yes-man, finds himself inadvertently involved in a plot to assassinate the president. The rebels hope to return to the "Age of Sinatra", "when happiness was not only considered achievable, but hailed as the ideal state of being."

Reviews

"In The Age of Sinatra, Ohle has seemingly concocted some sort of covert Oulipian recipe regarding the fantastic versus realism. Readers should take note of this insurgent fiction writer, David Ohle, who flays the human condition to singular, hallucinatory effect." - The Village Voice "Delicate and grotesque, tragic and hilarious, precarious but perfectly balanced...The Age of Sinatra, a litany of symptoms, is less like an ordinary novel than it is like a patient history. But those might be the stories we feel most keenly of all." - Shelley Jackson "Ohle continues to construct an intoxicatingly vivid and demented world that is both reflective and revolutionary." - LA Weekly"

Author Bio

David Ohle's first novel, Motorman, was published by Knopf in 1972. His short fiction has appeared in Harper's, Esquire and the Paris Review. A native of New Orleans, Ohle now lives in Lawrence, Kansas, and teaches at the University of Kansas.