Empty Bottle of Smoke

by Conon Edward Parks

The story of a man named Walter and his paranoid adventures in Seattle. When readers first meet Walter, he rummages through his mail, finding mostly junk that includes an offer for a magical Soviet elixer and a chain letter promising large sums of money. After a letter containing a quote from Nostradamus convinces Walter that he is "being stalked like a little rabbit," he decides to flee. And what better destination than a "bunker of a building graced under the banner name of the New Museum of Hysteria and Indecision and the We B Art Gallery"? This is where the Manifesto Party, a leftist libertine crew (free guns and dope for life) resides and holds court There, he meets Mac the night-watchman, who can discuss the Baader-Meinhoff gang, quote Gen. George Patton, make quick work of a punching bag, and cool himself off with a beer after the effort. Casting his lot with Mac, Walter finds himself involved in the Seattle underworld, complete with drugs---"It's all in the democratization of cocaine, don't you see?" Mac says---weapons and an assortment of left-wing "the power of the workers is not rooted in organization, but in disruption,"one character comments. As increasingly strange characters and events are added to this simmering pot of madness, how it will all end is anyone's guess, particularly in later chapters when the World Trade Organization sets upon Seattle as the protests commence and the riots break out.

170 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2016

Reviews

[Tamara Benson]

"Empty Bottle of Smoke" by Conon Parks begins with the words “based upon a true story.” This statement quickly becomes problematic for the reader, as what follows can only be described as the story of the events leading up to the World Trade Organization’s conference in Seattle in 1999 as told from the point of view of a drug-fogged, delusional, and disgruntled man. We follow Walter as he opens his junk mail and rants about everything from Soviet sexual enhancement elixirs to the dishonesty of Ed McMahon. Amid this mail, however, is a threatening letter that sends Walter scurrying for cover at the New Museum of Indecision and Hysteria and the We B Art Gallery. It is here where he meets a cornucopia of radicals, activists, and deviants. As the riots kick into high gear, Walter faces his own inner turmoil and soul searching, helped by the fact that he has no access to the drugs that have kept him incoherent most of the time.
While I find the plot distressingly familiar to the 2007 movie "Battle in Seattle," I have to say that the author has a way with words. It really does feel like you are in the mind of a drug user as he navigates the days leading up to the riots that shook Seattle. His choppy and often confusing sentences reflect the mindset of the main character. His descriptions of the riots are detailed and insightful.
This book is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an easy read. His stream-of-consciousness method of writing is made even more difficult by the fact that the narrator is as unreliable as the protagonist and seems to be seeing the world through a drug haze. I read this book twice and honestly am still confused as to what the author is trying to do. That said, it may appeal to an audience interested in drug culture or political activism.
I originally reviewed this book for Manhattan Book Review.

[Gregg Sapp]

If the circuitous novel “Empty Bottle of Smoke” is legitimately based upon a true story, then I have to wonder in what universe these actual events took place. Granted, the 1990 World Trade Organization riots that occurred in Seattle did, in fact, happen, but that’s about as far as this novel’s verisimilitude goes, and even that is a bit of a stretch. Some of the events may actually have taken place, but the characters in this novel never approach any measure of believability. They are like cartoon figures cut and pasted against a landscaped photograph of the actual melee, like inserting Homer Simpson into a picture of the flag raising of Iwo Jima. It stains a person’s credulity.

That is not to say that the characters in Conon Parks’s novel are not intriguing, in a trippy sort of way. Walter, the everyman protagonist, receives along with tons of junk mail a letter from his nemesis, the “Apex Predator,” threatening to track him down in Seattle and “get matters ironed out between you and me once and for all.” What matters required ironing out is not stated, but Walter is nevertheless panicked into action. On the spur of the moment, he abandons his normal life and takes refuge with the leftist Manifesto Party in the New Museum of Hysteria and Indecision.

From this point on, Walter wanders through various odd haunts across Seattle, encountering a motely assemblage of outlandish characters and blundering into bizarre situations. In many long, unbroken paragraphs, the third person, stream of consciousness narrative conveys the reader through a dizzying pastiche of loosely connected plot lines that precede, but do not necessarily lead up to the outbreak of violent demonstrations at the WTO meetings.

While the staccato weirdness of the text makes for lots of head scratching, Parks nevertheless teases some striking elements of satire. He borrows from popular culture, citing everybody from Pearl Jam to Cat Stevens, to contrast the absurdity and seriousness of radical politics. He leads readers through a tour of iconic Seattle locations, which provide the backdrop for all the folly. The imagery is striking, even thought its meanings are jumbled.

Peculiarly, in the “About the Author” section at the end of the book, Parks identifies himself as “chairman of the Arkansas Federation of Young Republicans,” among other things, and observes that his book “will not be popular with some Republicans because it is not a partisan diatribe.” Huh? I’m not sure what to make of this statement. If this is truly how he wishes to be recognized, then it is awkward, at best. It’s kind of like me identifying as a Cleveland Indians fan but apologizing to fellow fans for not writing about the Tribe winning a World Series, as if all other subjects are invalid. If, however, Parks is being ironic, he may be the only person who gets his joke.

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem that I have with this book. It is self-conscious and suffers from an identity crisis, all at once.

[Karin Bauer]

My husband is a picky reader: he thinks the book is brillant and one of the best and most entertaining pieces of fiction he has read in a long time. Well-drafted characters, lively dialogue leaving to the imagination what is not said; wicked sense of humour. The book is a painting in words.

[Jim]

I tried to read EMPTY BOTTLE OF SMOKE but could only get 40 pages into it before I decided that this was not worth my time. I am not sure if the readers who left previous reviews read the same book. After 40 pages I still did not know where the book was headed despite tales that it was going to end up with the WTO fracas in Seattle in 1999. I can understand why it was not picked up by any mainstream or regional publisher. It is a very unusual circumstance when I cannot recommend a title. This is one of those instances.

The characters did not have my sympathy or evoke any other emotion from me. The story rambled aimlessly with people popping in and out of the storyline. Sometimes I completely lost the thread.

Save yourself time and money.