
Dumpster, for God's Sake
Hardcover
Other Editions of This Title:
Paperback (6/11/2019)
Description
Equal parts sociological lore and screwball comedy, Dumpster, for God's Sake bends reality into fiction in a uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human.
"Profoundly dystopian and completely believable." -Dean MacCannell, author of The Tourist
Loviers City believes that cleanliness leads to Godliness. But order quickly descends into chaos when a sighting of the Virgin occurs. Soon, thousands arrive to visit the spot where She appeared. But the pilgrims leave their mark, discarding refuse and besmirching Loviers City's All-America vision.
Suspense mounts as Rudy Squazza, the red-bearded ringleader of the homeless, and Jasmine, a rich teenager working on a high school project, fall in love. He is a dumpster diver and the victim of police brutality. She dresses in black leather, rides a red Ducati Supersport 750, and is known as the "Angel from Hell."
With compelling prose, canny insight, and artful empathy, Ben Stoltzfus brilliantly examines group behavior in a timely tale of collective zeal and righteous intent that explores a city's urgent quest for soul.
Praise For Dumpster, for God's Sake…
“Reading Dumpster is like taking a trip through a carnival funhouse. My advice: kick back and enjoy Ben Stoltzfus’s unique vision as he leads you through a world of bizarre events, dazzling imagery, and unpredictable conversations.” −Carlos Cortés, author of Rose Hill and Fourth Quarter
“Dumpster, for God’s Sake fingers and elaborates on one of the great failings of sociological theory, perhaps it’s greatest failing: i.e., to account for the recrudescence of primitive tribal passions in our complex, globalized societies. We know that human interdependence can produce hostility as well as respect across lines of difference. Dumpster captures this dialectic-the return of tribalism that tears us apart as fast as it brings us together. In fact it gives the contours and texture of this unanalyzed ‘in-our-face’ sociological mess better than any sociological accounting of it because it fills out the space between Durkheim and Tarde, the two nineteenth-century sociologists, in a way that could, perhaps, only be done by fiction. Dumpster is creepily, profoundly dystopian and completely believable. What happens to the good people of Loviers City is as bad as any imagined alien invasion. Only there aren’t any aliens to blame. In Stoltzfus’s light hand, this fiction gets us closer to the truth about ‘community’ than any sociological account I have read.” −Dean MacCannell, author of The Tourist and The Ethics of Sightseeing
39 West Press, 9781946358165, 244pp.
Publication Date: April 9, 2019