Search results for ""author daniel v. meier""

Liberia’s oligarchy: The beginning of the end.2019 Grand Prize Winner - Red City ReviewBased on the remarkable true account of a young American who landed in Liberia in 1961.*****The story weaves drama, dark comedy, and romance throughout a rich tapestry of narration - The San Francisco Book ReviewKEN VERRIER IS NOT HAPPY, NOR AT PEACE. He is experiencing the turbulence of Ishmael and the guilt of his brother's death. His sudden decision to drop out of college and deal with his demons shocks his family, his friends, and especially his girlfriend, soon to have been his fiancee. His destination: Liberia - The richest country in Africa both in monetary wealth and in natural resources.NOTHING COULD HAVE PREPARED HIM FOR THE EXPERIENCES HE WAS ABOUT TO LIVE THORUGH. Ken quickly realizes that he has arrived in a place where he understands very little of what is considered normal, where the dignity of life has little meaning, and where he can trust no one.Flying into the interior bush as a transport pilot, Ken learns quickly. He witnesses, first-hand, the disparate lives of the Liberian "Country People? and the "Congo People" also known as Americo-Liberians. These descendants of President Monroe's American Colonization Policy that sent freed slaves back to Africa in the 1800s have set up a strict hierarchical society not unlike the antebellum South.Author Dan Meier describes Ken's many escapades, spanning from horrifying to whimsical, with engaging and fast-moving narrative that ultimately describes a society upon which the wealthy are feeding and in which the poor are being buried.It's a novel that will stay with you long after the last word has been read.

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The search for the literary life. Satire at its Best!In this indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time, two young people, Beckman and Malany set out on an odyssey to find meaning and reality in the artistic life, and in doing so unleash a barrage of humorous, unintended consequences.Beckman and Malany's journey reflects the allegorical evolution of humanity from its primal state, represented by Beckman's dismal life as a dishwasher to the crude, medieval development of mankind in a pool hall, and then to the false but erudite veneer of sophistication of the academic world.The world these protagonists live in is a world without love. It has every other variety of drive and emotion, but not love. Do they know it? Not yet. And they won't until they figure out why no birds sing here.Meier's writing is precise and detailed, whether the situation he describes is clear or ambiguous.Fans of Franzen and Salinger will find Meier to be another sharp, provocative writer of our time.

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