August 4, 2016 – M.C.V. EGAN ❧Defining Ways❧

Book Genre: Fiction, Humor

Publisher: Magenta

Release Date: April 1, 2016

Buy Link(s):

Amazon | BN | Kobo | Smashwords | Indigo | iTunes

Book Description:

You ever have a neighbour whose behaviour is so mind-bogglingly inconsiderate and so suicide-inducingly annoying that you just want to ask him, in a polite Canadian way, to please stop?

TurboJetslams isn’t like that.

Jass Richards’ new novel, TurboJetslams: Proof #29 of the Non-Existence of God, tells the tale of one person’s pathetic and hilarious attempts to single-handedly stop the destruction of a little piece of beautiful Canadian wilderness by the increasing numbers of idiots who couldn’t care less.

A quick and entertaining summer read. and/or A perfect cottage-warming gift. and/or Boomer lit. and/or Sure to resonate with paddlers everywhere.
Extraordinarily well written with wit, wisdom, and laugh-out- loud ironic recognition, TurboJetslams: Proof #29 of the Non-Existence of God is a highly entertaining and a riveting read that will linger on in the mind and memory long after the little book itself has been finished and set back upon the shelf (or shoved into the hands of friends with an insistence that they drop everything else and read it!). Highly recommended for community library collections. ~Midwest Book Review

Excerpt:

On the Monday, when she and Shiggles went for a walk down the
lane—Shiggles liked to say hi to Nutter, Caramel, and Beast, but
they didn’t go there on weekends when the Bullerts were up—they
saw a new dog at the edge of the road. Right across from Bullerts.
A big black one.

Correction. They saw a bear at the edge of the road.

Correction. Three bears.

Ah, she thought. A Teddy Bear Picnic.

Next morning, she saw that Bullert and his buddies had tossed a
couple plastic bags of garbage into the bush, into the treed swath of
land between the lane and Campbell’s road. The swath was actually
Andy’s property, but she didn’t think Bullert realized that. It
wasn’t his property, that’s probably all that mattered.
Oh well, she thought, looking at the torn plastic bags, the scattered
tins, licked clean, the packaging of various materials, torn and
scattered, but also licked clean—let Andy deal with it. Problem
is, he probably wouldn’t notice it. Since Bullert had dumped it
across from his own driveway, not across from Andy’s driveway.

Which, by the way, how stupid is that, she asked Shiggles, safe in
her arms just in case. Even you don’t like to shit in your own
yard if you can help it.

He probably also left his barbecue grill outside. Yummy bits of meat
and fat. What self-respecting wolf within a hundred miles would
ignore that?

It happened every time a new seasonal moved in. They’d just toss
their leftover food: hamburger buns, pasta, rice, wieners, vegetable
soup— She’d seen it all.

Including a car battery. And a bag full of used diapers. But that
was along the road, not beside someone’s cottage.

Thing is, would they do that in the city? She didn’t think so.

Then why do it here? Do they really not even consider the
possibility that their actions might have consequences for others?
Who might not see Mama Bear, or raccoons, in time to grab their
Shiggles?

Maybe they figure it’s organic, it’ll decompose. (How slow are
city raccoons?)

Maybe, like so many other things, being here, at a lake, in a forest,
brings out the primeval in people. They think they’re in the wild.
Where there are no dumps.

But where there are bears. And raccoons. And wolves, and
martens— Anyone in the wild with an ounce of grey matter, let
alone moral responsibility, buries their garbage. Or carries it out.

She put on the pair of gloves she’d brought with her and moved all
the leftover garbage back onto Bullert’s property. Maybe he’d
get the message.

Or not. The following weekend, late Sunday when the ATVs had gone,
she headed out for a walk in the forest, using the entrance, loosely
speaking, at the bottom of the hill because Frankie was at his cabin,
getting ready for deer season, or duck season, or mastodon season,
and although she had the legal right to use the road past his cabin,
she wasn’t in the mood for a confrontation. If he was preparing
for deer season, or duck season, or mastodon season, he’d be
cleaning his rifles.

And she saw right there, just ten feet off the road and just two feet
to the left of the path, four bags of garbage. What the fuck.
Seriously?

She carried them back where they belonged. To Bullert’s property.
Specifically, into Bullert’s screened porch.

The bears did their thing. The raccoons did their thing. There was
a lovely mess to clean up when they arrived the following Friday.

And the hardware store was, oddly enough, all out of screen.

Right in the middle of blackfly season.

Author Bio: Jass Richards has an M.A. in Philosophy and used to be a stand-up comic (now she’s more of a sprawled-out- on-the- couch comic). Despite these attributes, she has received four Ontario Arts Council grants.Her most recent novel, TurboJetslams: Proof #29 of the Non-Existence of God has been called “highly entertaining … and a riveting read” (Midwest Book Review). In addition to her Rev and Dylan series (The Road Trip Dialogues, The Blasphemy Tour, and License to Do That), which has reportedly made people snort root beer out their noses, she has written This Will Not Look Good on My Resume, a collection of short stories described as “a bit of quirky fun that slaps you upside the head,” followed by its sequel Dogs Just Wanna Have Fun. “The O & D” was published in The Cynic Online Magazine (Sep 2011), two excerpts from This Will Not Look Good on My Resume have been selected for Contemporary Monologues for Young Women (vol.3), and Substitute Teacher from Hell was produced and performed by Ghost Monkey Productions in Winnipeg (2014).

Her worst-ever stand-up moment occurred in Atlanta (at a for-blacks- only club) (apparently). Her best-ever stand-up moment occurred in Toronto (when she made the black guy fall off his stool because he was laughing so hard at her Donovan Bailey joke).

www.jassrichards.com

https://www.facebook.com/JassRichards1/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

https://twitter.com/jassrichards

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29536148-turbojetslams?from_search=true#other_reviews

http://www.amazon.com/Jass-Richards/e/B0041HGOOE/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1