The Booker Effect

Frederick Manuel

Description

The Booker Effect draws upon a spirited conflict between Max Booker, an Educational Policeman, and Tommy Taylor, a rebellious teenage punk rocker.

“The Booker Effect displays a jaunty energy and compelling forward momentum. The writing is consistently assured and the dialogue is especially well-handled. The novel is marked throughout by good humour and satire with engaging forays into philosophy, literature, mathematics, and pop music. This is an original work whose themes are explored with panache and a quirky wisdom.”
—Ed Kavanagh, Author, Musician, and Teacher

When schools become plagued by terrorism and teenage anarchy, Max Booker, a German-born educator with a no-nonsense attitude proposes a solution—a special “Educational Police” department along with a scientifically-based system of corporal punishment. When the public becomes polarized in its reactions to Educational Police operations, Booker must contend with criticism of his pain apparatus and rumours of sinister activities at his educational camps.

As a counterpoint, enter Tommy Taylor, an intelligent but rebellious teenage punk rocker. Disaffected with school, he becomes Booker’s nemesis, attempting to subvert the Education Police in his own unique way. It’s Hogan’s Heroes meets A Clockwork Orange—a new Jonathan Swift for the twenty-first century.

Sujets

• Humor
• History of Germany
• The Beatles
• Captain Beefheart
• Booker
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Informations

• Publié par: Trafford Publishing
• Date de parution: 30 mars 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781426930300
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Booker Effect





by Frederick Manuel



Published by:
Graham Manuel [e-mail] Clarenville NL Canada
Edited by: Graham Manuel
Manuscript typing by: Marilyn Manuel and Amelia Manuel
Printed by: Trafford Publishing
Front cover art by: Melanie Smith
© Copyright 2010 Frederick Manuel. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.
ISBN: 978-1-4269-2719-5 (sc) ISBN: 978-1-4269-2718-8 (hc) ISBN: 978-1-4269-3030-0 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010902468
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only. Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
Trafford rev. 08/07/2023
www.trafford.com North America & international toll-free: 844-688-6899 (USA & Canada) fax: [phone]


Contents
1. This Beatles Thing
2. Tommy
3. Brown Study
4. The Will To Educate
5. Semi-Seminal Seminars
6. Black Hole After Rubber Soul
7. Gas Daddy
8. All Things Nice
9. A Day in The Life or, The Best Batch Yet
10. A Better Tomorrow
11. Math Molds the Mind, Words Weld the World
12. A Perfect 10
13. The Hearing
14. Professional Development Day
15. Something About A Cokecanchillum
16. Educational Atrocity Exhibition
17. Booker Children
18. A Damn Good Clubbing
19. Forensic Musicology
20. A Word About Words
21. Unclouded by Cloudberries
22. Booker in Black
23. The Fruits of Research
24. A Slow and Gentle Universe: The Greening of Max Booker
25. The Empathy Room
26. Meet a Beatle
27. Booka
28. Words and Things
29. The Rime of the Ancient Hippie
30. Kulturkampf
31. Lifeline
32. Rock Flambé
33. Auf Wiedersehen
34. More Popular Than The Beatles
35. (Messing) With The Beatles
36. Psychic TV Dinner
37. Referendum
38. Balloon Man





TO MY WONDERFUL MOTHER
BLANCHE MANUEL
WHO, AT 90 YEARS OF AGE,
COULD STILL GET ON THE FLOOR
AND DO “THE BOOKER”


PREFACE
T he Booker Effect is my brother Fred’s first and only novel. He left us in April of 2009 before the book was published.
This work of satirical fiction was a long time in the making. The author worked on it over several years and much of it, to use his words, was “hard won.” He identified so much with its characters that there were times when he would quote lines or make jokes in the different personas accompanied by peals of laughter. The world, or rather the two worlds, that he had created were constantly intruding into his own, giving an uncanny animation to it all.
Fred was an interesting amalgam as a person. His life, immersed in academic studies, gave him an encyclopedic knowledge upon which he drew readily in the creation of his characters—from philosophy, literature, science. He was very much at home in these spheres. He was equally comfortable with a glass of rum listening to the music of punk or avant-garde musicians. He regarded such experiences as equally valid, creating a rich palette to fire his imagination.
Although very discriminating by his own definition, Fred leaves the value judgments in his writing to the reader. He would often speak of Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal when referring to his work when any equivocation was suggested. He wanted to be intellectual and provocative but yet, in his own words, he would often simply say, “ I’m just trying to have a bit of fun with it.”
So here it is. It’s come to fruition—an act accompli, a promise kept. A balance of heavy and light, of dark and bright. Two worlds that intersect in a crazy symbiosis—The Booker Effect.


Graham Manuel


Chapter 1 This Beatles Thing
A t Uncle Bob’s garage, Tommy and his band were strumming guitars, trying to hammer out riffs, and attacking the drum set. As usual Tommy was experimenting with vocal tones. After a while they took a break to smoke some marijuana and drink beer and talk about their favourite subjects: sex, substances, rock music and mass murderers.
As he passed a joint to Tommy, Dean said, “You know the main reason I’d like to be a rock and roll star? It’s the sex. You can have all the sex you want. Imagine how much sex these guys get, going right back to the Beatles.”
“Yeah, but they’re dead now. Some of them, anyway,” said Dave. None of the boys knew much about the rise and fall of the Beatles.
Dean blurted out, “Paul dead?”
Dave shrugged that he wasn’t sure and asked, “Didn’t he die of cancer?”
Licking the cigarette paper to roll another joint, Tommy joined in. “John Lennon’s dead.”
“Killed by a Japanese guy, wasn’t he?” said Dean.
“His wife was Japanese,” said Dave.
“Everyone knows John’s wife was Japanese,” added Dean.
Tommy broke in. “No, the guy who shot him. His wife was Japanese, too.”
They then turned their attention to George and Ringo. All knew George was dead, and the prevailing thought was that Ringo had died a long time ago, too.
Suddenly the garage door swung open and Uncle Bob, with a slight stagger, walked in. He looked at Tommy, and then at Dave and Dean. “You been drinking my homebrew? You little buggers, you been drinking my beer.” Since this was a typical greeting from Bob, nobody paid much attention to it. Tommy lit another joint and passed it to his uncle.
Dave sipped his beer. “Imagine! All the Beatles dead.” He looked at Bob. “We were talking about the Beatles and what happened to them.”
“You don’t know nothin’ about the Beatles,” grunted Bob. Stinking of lemon gin, he proceeded to enlighten these young morons about the subject. “The Beatles were the greatest band there ever was, the greatest band there is, and the greatest band there’ll ever be.”
In the middle of a draw, Dean asked, “Paul dead?” Bob fumbled through his coat pocket and pulled out a flask of gin. With a long dirty fingernail he scratched the label twice, trisecting what remained of his precious liquor.
Tommy laughed. “I’ve always admired your self-control, Uncle. But is Paul dead?”
Taking two small swigs from his flask Bob waxed a bit nostalgic and then smiled to himself. “Years ago I bought all their albums on vinyl but it all goes back to a song called Strawberry Fields Forever . At the end of that song Lennon says, ‘I bury Paul.’ You see, boys, at that time there was a rumour that Paul was dead, killed in a car crash. Then they put out Sergeant Pepper , in ‘67. That was my last year in school. Sergeant Pepper was all about Paul.”
“That’s a famous album, isn’t it?” mumbled Tommy.
Bob continued. “On the cover of Sergeant Pepper there is an open hand directly above Paul’s head, the hand of death, you know. Inside there’s a photo of the band in these crazy uniforms. A patch on the arm of Paul’s uniform reads OPD—officially pronounced dead. Then later, on Abbey Road , Paul is in a black suit, barefoot, and out of step with the other Beatles. John and Ringo look like priests and George looks like a gravedigger. There was enough circumstantial evidence, like the lawyers say, to prove that Paul was dead.”
“What about George? Didn’t he die a little while ago?” asked Dean.
Bob drank from his flask and grinned. “Yep, George was killed by a burglar. If you look at the cover of Sergeant Pepper you’ll see behind George a man wearing cheap sunglasses and holding up what looks like a crowbar. As for Ringo he was accidentally killed years ago on a set making a movie with Frank Zappa.” Bob laughed. “Ah, just kidding you, boys.” With his last drink of gin, Bob toasted the Beatles. “The Beatles are all dead and all alive. That’s my phil-osh-ophy,” he slurred.
“You seem all worked up about this Beatles thing,” Tommy said as he picked up his guitar.
In a solemn tone Bob lectured, “You should play like the Beatles, or you’ll never get anywhere, never pay the rent, never make a living. You won’t always have my garage, which don’t cost you a cent. Listen, baby boomers buy records. You got to reach them. Be like the Beatles. Be influenced by the Beatles. Be like the Beatles, be like the Beatles.”
Irritated, Tommy barked, “The Beatles suck. I can’t play their fancy chords, and anyway I don’t want to.”
Bob threw his empty flask near the drum set. “If you want to practice in my garage, you’d better get more like the Beatles. I’ll pull the plug on you.” He fell against the door and then staggered out.
Tommy kept an eye on his uncle who made his way down the street. “He didn’t mean it, just mouthing off, liquor talk. Who knows, maybe we can use this Beatles thing.”


Chapter 2 Tommy
T all for his age which was two months shy of eighteen, his face beaming a grinning intelligence and eyes casting a mischievous glint, Tommy Taylor irritated his teachers and drew respect from his peers. Tommy was a student with marginal grades and a list of school misdemeanors as long as the lyric sheet of a rap album. His behavior had earned him numerous suspensions—in and out of school. His cynicism was convincing because it was a product of thought, unlike the peevishness of many of his friends, which was postured and artificial. Tommy had whittled down his verbal defiance to laconic outbursts tha