Legally Ted is the story of a parole who is just barely able to
keep his cool until he meets Ted in a Group and has to contend with
guilt, despair, regret, rage, Clock-work Orange-like treatment systems,
retro-reunion revival bands, the profound differences between Styx and
Journey and his own diminishing hopes for redemption.
Published in the spring 2013 issue of The Gettysburg Review
Grinding Machines is
the story of a desperate man offered a chance at freedom through the
retelling, by a cagy Gurkha, of the conversion of the great Tibetan
saint Milarepa though in a decidedly modern way. The protagonist must
choose his path as they discuss scorpions, the Pinkertons, black magic,
revenge, sexual politics, pension plans, the Chinese invasion of Tibet,
and the recursive nature of revenge over cheap whiskey and Bollywood
movies.
An online version is available at http://thedirtynapkin.com/
Joseph Chinnock is the director of A Writers’ Collective, a consortium of Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduates. Grinding Machines is an excerpt from his most recent book, The Alchemy of Nourishment,
the story of a post-Catholic, B minus Buddhist who joins a cooking
class in the new-age Mecca of Boulder. The class is put on by a
charismatic Wise-Woman with a dark past, and her precocious teenage
daughter, resulting in a love triangle that explores the very limits of
hunger, food, love, betrayal, madness, revenge, Clock–Work Orange-like
programs, organized resistance to such programs and
ultimately—redemption. His next project is about a Hindu Sherlock
Holmes, a Brahmin postal worker in the British Raj who uses Hindu logic
to solve crimes. In his free time Joseph writes, reads, broods, drinks
way too much coffee and listens to New Order.
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