New York, NY (Top40 Charts) "Stories from the Age of Distraction" is a novel about two friends that set out to do what perhaps few can achieve in this age of smart technology, use social media to combat the disease of distraction. Imagine the act of posting, pinning and tweeting fueling a communication renaissance instead of a broad, linguistic decline?
This new work of contemporary literary fiction transcends the impersonal dialogue of our times with a fresh, observational style and a uniquely creative perspective. The books overly observant writing style is a backlash to all those things that we no longer notice as first-time novelist
Patricia M. Mahon, issues a call to arms to take back the written word and reignite the art of storytelling.
The novel's lead characters claim, "The digital age is an imagination killer …We think in acronyms. We truncate. We're losing our oral tradition … We're on the verge of losing our identity!"
When the novel's two main protagonists,
Morgan Byrnes, a speech writer, and Percy Chadwick, a school teacher, detect a dire "communication crisis," they set out to defiantly save modern vernacular. The pair has been writing stories back and forth on Facebook™ for years, but when others start adding to their storyline, the idea for a global app is born.
Morgan says she longs to "... create a communication renaissance. I'm not talking about an easier way to book a restaurant or find a hotel. I'm talking about a shared, interactive global story …"
After turning down funding from the all-powerful, all-controlling "Silicons," the pair decide to go it alone. They develop their app with the help of freelance techno-savant, Rowley Gaines. As their first global EBook unfolds, the trio journeys across continents and time zones moving in and out of the lives of tragic and heroic characters.
There are gamblers, surfers, dress-makers and dreamers; and when the lines between virtual reality and actuality get blurred, our three heroes find themselves on a remote island in the South Atlantic - the ideal ecosystem to stop, embrace nature, confirm reality, and come face to face with those things that make stories so timeless and the desire to tell them so universal.
In describing the odyssey, the narrator states, "The journey was neither a small step nor a giant leap … it was an epic vault of consciousness for all those that had lost touch with their soul."
Accompanied by the titans of world literature, the book is a story-within-a story that re-connects us to art, self-expression, and modern romanticism so we can claim the dynamic conversation of our time. For his part in the creative odyssey, Rowley Gaines is profoundly and utterly changed. Failing to differentiate between his virtual comfort zone and his earthly soul, his pursuit of a fictional character consumes the book's final chapters.
The book describes him as "... defragged to the bone, and he could no longer Google™ or Bing™ his way back into the human race."
"Stories from the Age of Distraction: The Island" is the first in a series of narratives about the impact of technology on relationships, creative expression, and the timeless tradition of stories.
Volume One is available on Amazon (Kindle Edition) at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Y1VTVWC
For more information or enquiries go to: https://www.theageofdistraction.com.
