DIRT BIKE TOWN
A Novel By Tim Barrus
I am autistic.
Sometimes, it helps to say that — I am autistic — upfront and out-of-the way. I am a certified autistic (this is not news). I am a controversial writer. To deal with autism, I write. Death threats are not new to me. Some of this was published in the New York Times, and NYT Magazine. People love me or they hate me but they are rarely indifferent. My books break the publishing rules. I can’t tell you why. I don’t know why. This is literary fiction. My films expose tension and desire. I have published a dozen novels. Magazines. Ghosted columns. Reviews. Book tours. Prizes. Off-Broadway plays. City-wide reads. 3,033 videos. My last piece in Flaunt: Marilyn Monroe + Photos. Over a million people have viewed my work on Vimeo for Cinematheque and Real Stories Gallery Foundation. 45,000 see my stuff on Ello. I have sold the film rights to every book I have ever written. Dirt Bike Town is a road trip. It was the summer of the riots. Nothing was true, and everything was true. Riding shotgun is code for someone is sitting behind you on the bike. Hanging on. Male, female, it’s close. Male, Male it’s close. Either way, it’s intimate. The Normals are intimate, but only with each other. Black. White. Same. same. Not unlike the manner in which the person who is now shoved up against your ass on the bike is conflicted as to who or what to hold so no one falls down the rocky slopes. My book, Anywhere, Anywhere, went off Broadway as a play. Do Not Fall Off the Bike is basic rule #1. Culture had disintegrated. For decades, survival was all there was. The Dope Wars put an end to the Narco-State, but the City-State picked up the slack. America was twenty little countries. The Normals were losing the culture war. We traveled on our dirt bikes riot to riot, city to city. To feel a heartbeat. To be heard. To look at gatekeepers right on hard in the eye. Censorship is the backbone. No one loved anyone. It was as dark as time. It was as brilliant as a flame. Everything was redefined. Language. Government. Power. Loss. It was the beginning. It had been the beginning for a very long while. This is a small sample from the novel.
This is a query. It is also the first few pages of the book. This way, you can stop reading wherever you want, or don’t stop reading at all. I have Big Plans for this book.