"Every age, every culture, every custom and tradition has its own character, its own weakness and its own strength, its beauties and ugliness; accepts certain sufferings as a matter of course, puts up patiently with certain evils. Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap. . . . Now there are times when a whole generation is caught in this way between two ages, two modes of life, with the consequence that it loses all power to understand itself . . ."
--Hermann Hesse, written in 1927, and just as true today.
You might find it a little uncomfortable when the short stories of Jason Ratcliff force you to identify with the personal struggles of a very fictionalized Bill Clinton, but you probably didn't come here to be made comfortable. The subject matter of Jason Ratcliff's stories is often inherently funny, yet fused with issues of confusion and self-perception that will stay in your mouth long after you're done chewing these stories.
Jason says, "I’m a 31-year-old schizophrenic living on disability. Just a few classes short of my bachelor’s in philosophy, but I’ve pretty much dropped out for now. Most of my prose is dreamlike and unreal, some of it abstract experimentation with language. Many of my ideas are based on dreams (I tend to remember dreams often and vividly). This stuff was written in 1999; for the past year I’ve written nothing but screenplays, and for the years before that I was concentrating on novels and novellas." He has four books available: The Books of Angelhaunt Vol. I and Vol. II, Rites of Passage : My Schizophrenic Youth in Mosaic, and The Flourishing. Check out his website at http://www.angelhaunt.net/, or write to him at jasrat@attglobal.net.
Jason's works here at Unlikely Stories are:
2003:
The Cult of Clinton
The House of Mirrors
Eyes
Here Imprisoned