The Junk Yard Solution: Adventures Among the Boxcars and Other Lost Causes

The Junk Yard Solution Adventures Among the Boxcars and Other Lost Causes As the rest of the world goes wild over smart phones, an odd assortment of eclectic characters hunkers down near Lebanon, Kansas, geographic center of the lower 48, at the middle of a square-mile junk yard where railroads dump old boxcars. The characters live in the boxcars. They don't like electronic gadgets. They're fed up with digital life. In a triumph of literary fiction, adventure, mystery, suspense and caustic comical digs at contemporary society and U.S. history, they create an acerbic satire in search of lost causes. Among them lovely Loretta campaigns to tear down a cell phone tower that rises above the boxcar village. The tower is owned by a communications company whose salesmen are Cheyenne Native Americans. But then Loretta is discovered one morning hanging dead from the tower. A large Federal Marshal and ex-NFL tight end investigates her death, grilling all residents, each with their own peculiar fantasy tale. Suspense builds. Who killed Loretta? Will the tower come down? Why are the Cheyenne circling the village? Why is this one of the most enjoyable, readable and fascinating novels published? The answers lie in the characters created by the author. As in earlier novels, described by critics as "marvelously extraordinary, eccentric and bizarre," Peter Kelton's characters emerge from boxcars where each life has had its ups and downs, tales of love, triumph and adventure, but never a defeat. As in all his novels the author remains steady in his belief that well-written literary fiction doesn't have to be high brow; it has to embrace ideas about destiny in a storyline that holds the readers' attention. During his classic presentation at the 200th anniversary writers' conference of North American Review, the nation's oldest literary magazine, he poked fun at his own novels for their obscurity, implying clarity in the digital age equals salvation. Then he toyed with the digital age itself: Some nut will find a way to blow up the electric grid. All these electronic gadgets that rely on electricity will go dark. The batteries will run down. We're talking Cormac McCarthy darkness, black on black. . . except for one distant flicker of light. It's on a beach probably Australia. Survivors will make their way through the dark and find the light from a single candle. Next to the candle will be a lad with a note book scribbling away with the last pencil on earth. He's writing about what happened. He hopes someone will read what he writes. That's what writers do. They hope. In "The Junk Yard Solution" Kelton's characters are indeed marvelously extraordinary, eccentric and bizarre. They are just as real as Studs Terkel's real folks in "The Great War." Instead of a war to bind them together, they share the Junk Yard in a fantasy. After a small standing ovation for his literary presentation, a local reporter in Cedar Falls, Iowa asked Kelton what his "style" was. "Wedged somewhere between the beautiful language of John Hawkes and the dense absurdity of Thomas Pynchon." "The Junk Yard Solution" is a companion to a six-novel bookshelf that also includes "Splat!" "A Light in Polanco," "The Trevor Truculence," "Reminds Me of My Innocence," and "The Yesterlings," written in a span of 50 years after Lewis H. Lapham, editor of Harper's, wrote to the author's agent, "I love the way Kelton writes." His writing has been described as "lyrical and stunning in its simplicity."

About the Author :
Peter Kelton writes fiction when he's between news jobs and has written for some of the world's largest news organizations. Most of his work has been in New York. He has critiqued more than 450 novels in a national column and has written six novels of his own in a unique erudite literary fiction style of adventure, mystery, suspense and satire. He grew up in Texas, served overseas in the US Army and returned to Europe as a foreign correspondent. He currently divides his time between his homes in East St. Louis, IL and Querétaro, Mexico. He has ghost written for more than 100 clients and is a top-rated writer for the Upwork free-lance agency.

Review :
5 Stars I enjoyed the complexity and the individual personalities of every person in the story and the bizarre, fascinating way it has been written . . . It is a unique story that had me hooked in the opening and dragged me through its pages, a willing spectator, unable to get enough. I found myself remembering every story of the Junk Yard's residents even pages into the book because they stand out so much, each eccentric in their own way, despite or because they live in a place with only one rule: no cell phones . . . Even though they are cut off from most, if not all, technological advancements, the tales of the residents, the stories they tell, and the daily happenings in Junk Yard were more than enough to hold my interest. I can see where they are coming from, in this day and age. People of today are defined by their gadgets and social media accounts, but these people who lead interesting stories and contemplate strange ideas - even without the advancements now offered today - somehow seem to lead more fulfilling lives. --Reviewed By Jessica Barbosa for Readers' Favorite 5 Stars For me, the most notable part of The Junk Yard Solution was the cast of characters. There is Loretta herself, who is described as having been "a health nut, a cleanliness freak, [and] a Yogini of the first order." Loretta had a passion for learning. Then come the actors, Arthur, and his "friend" Oswald (who makes a fine plumber); Cicero who is also known as Don Quixote (and as CVR), who sometimes wears a monk's robe and is the one to whom the others go with their problems; and Helena, the Chocolate Lady, whose life goal (at age 70) is to travel to India to spread her late husband's ashes there, to name a few. My personal favorite is the widow, Ellen McDougal, who "converses mostly with her deceased husband, the historian." I especially enjoyed Miss Ellen because she "wanders among the boxcars at night, kind of like an itinerant fundamentalist of a proselytizing faith, quoting The Elements of Style." Meanwhile, a couple of her neighbors, Jefferson Davis McClandish and Justine, don't unsettle her in the least when they take up nudism, but they annoy her no end with their incessant use of the word "like." (Seriously, that is a person I'd like to meet!) --Reviewed by Patricia Reding, award-winning author of the Oathtaker series 5 Stars The Junk Yard Solution is narrated by a citizen and a highly self-righteous man, Cicero. I would love to see a community made up of discarded boxcars and the interesting people it would attract, much like this novel. The characters were a bit crazy. They all had their own reasons for this secluded lifestyle, but I really enjoyed the Chocolate Lady. The distinct personality of each character reveals the research and exceptional thought the author put into this mysterious novel . . . . The Junk Yard Solution by Peter Kelton unravels the mystery behind who hanged this young woman from the communications tower. Lebanon, Kansas, may be the center of the 48 states but this graveyard for forgotten boxcars and railroad tracks is a refuge for awkward and bizarre individuals. There was just one rule: no cell phones. A cell tower put amid their homes was very insulting and went against everything they stood for. Only Loretta had the initiative to negotiate its removal, so Marshal Rick Senate must find out if this was the key to her death. Finding answers was difficult when a few of the residents lived in the past mentally. --Reviewed By Peggy Jo Wipf for Readers' Favorite