Douglas H. Young

(Two Comic Novellas, Writer's Publishing House, 1982, 368 pp.) Does the Tidy Bowl Man become alive as the result of a freak accident in a genetic event occurring within a corporate marketing venture, or is he some kind of extraterrestrial? What message or influence may he have?  How can Jiffy Johns figure so prominently in the life of a recent retiree on a tropical island?  Satire and the absurd, the fantastic and black humor, directed at many facets of modern culture are interwoven with verbal and visual exuberance in both stories.

Ht = Ht (Comic Novel, New Directions Publishing House, 1987, 153 pp.) HT=HT (high tech, high touch), terms used in J. Naisbett's book MEGATRENDS to represent a need for an appropriate human response to modern technology's demands, is a darkly comic novel, with surreal overtones, covering several days of crisis in the personal and corporate life of the protagonist, as the dark side of the Information Age suddenly leaves him twisting in the wind.

Don't Fence Me In (Novel, New Directions Publishing House, 1995, 368 pp.) A middle-aged professor of philosophy senses walls slowly closing in to crush him, fears becoming mentally and physically soft, feels that through the years he has given it all up - his earlier ideas, ambitions, values. He decides life would be engaged to its fullest in the business world and joins Infinity Inc., a biotech firm, as an ethical engineer. Nevertheless, over the next several days, his apprehension of impending doom becomes a stark reality in the form of genetic accidents and violent confrontations.

Downsized-Upsized (Novel, New Directions Publishing House, 2000, 413 pp.) The protagonist, a rising executive of a large corporation in South Florida, is suddenly and unexpectedly given the pink slip. Almost immediately, he's catapulted from a rather bland life into four days of crime and notoriety involving, among other obstacles, the police, a robbery gang, terrorists and a psychopath.

Jack O Lantern (Novel, Writer's Publishing House, 2003, 474 pp.) A Reverend, facing child molestation charges in his Miami parish, goes to a small island off the East Coast of South Florida to avoid the limelight. On an evening stroll, during Halloween evening, he is charged with raping the Chief of Police's wife, killing his sister and other crimes. The events ensuing that night and the next day on the Island map a world - a sort of cuckoo's nest few fly over - somewhat like ours today, where resolution and affirmation are, at best, uncertain, and wisdom a rarity. ZOOMER BOOMERS Yes VirginiaThere Are Second Acts (Novel, Writer’s Publishing House, 2006, 350 pp.) Fred Friendly, a Vietnam vet and employee of World Wide Enterprises in Florida, is eased into early retirement at age sixty. Friendly and wife then move to Paradise Found, a proactive community for seniors, in North Carolina. Events unfold that involve terminal illness, a jihadist plot to cripple the US, and violence among those who carry scars from past and present wars. On a hike in the Appalachians near Paradise, during late October, the main characters are compelled to meet their fate. How they cope with injury and death, retirement, physical frailty and the quicksand of choice has significance that extends beyond the personal to matters of national and global security. Novel in progress (Title to be determined) Why had he signed that little card with the picture of a candle and returned it to the Amnesty International address? At age sixty and recently retired, amnesty wasn’t likely in the cards for him. Nor could his signature on anything likely affect the outcome of the terror and torture that stalked the world. For him going on the road, taking a little trip might give him a last chance to smell the proverbial roses, before he lapsed into the sunset of years that he was afraid (plans to the contrary) would sink him. Perhaps in a moment of tranquility, he’d catch a glimpse of what he might have been, and failed to give, remember the hole-in-one that stopped just short. What point, though, was there to live in a Neverland? But then things could still happen, couldn’t they? - even to an ordinary joe like him. His trip takes him to a world where answers are everywhere and nowhere; to places that have no bottom; beyond darkness to something he had never imagined.