Shock Totem

Th. Metzger’s original work of renegade history is Blood and Volts: Edison, Tesla and the Electric Chair. But as both sequel and prequel, first there came Shock Totem. The two electrical giants lurk in the novel’s background, battling on the astral plane for possession of a schizophrenic boy with rare psychic powers and a tricked-out disco van. Far more potent a deity is James Brown, the Ultimate Funk-Lord and Godfather of Souls. The story is a quest – across the Burnt Over District of New York State, ending at Love Canal, America’s premier toxic waste nowhereland. Published originally as a “novel of medical terror,” Shock Totem is in fact a lost and found gnostic gospel in which electrical power is the modern manifestation of divine wind and fire. Click title to purchase, author’s name for his work that has appeared in the magazine.