Meditations, Magic, and Manslaughter

By Gregory Alan Norton

Meditations, Magic, and Manslaughter represents some of the best new work of Gregory Alan Norton whose previous works were well reviewed. This novella spans both literary, historical, and occult fiction. The narrative opens in 1918 in southwestern Indiana where the French Vincennois community undergoes daily struggle against mainstream, rural, anti-immigrant culture from that era. A coal miner accidentally kills a well connected hillbilly and is put on trial for manslaughter. The French miner calls on community help including a labor organizer friend from Chicago. The organizer is employed as a bookbinder, and he brings a book on Meditations and Magic to help calm down the miner while awaiting trial. That's when the story starts to get spooky with robots. And did we mention the love story between the daughter of a French lawyer and another member of the Vincennois community?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gregory Alan Norton
• Release date: Apr 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005463168

Gregory Alan Norton

Gregory Alan Norton's short story publication credits include The Princeton Arts Review, George and Mertie's Place, Tarpaulinsky, whimperbang, Rockford Review, Nebo, Missing Spoke Press Anthology, Struggle, Writers' Corner, Oyez Review, Short Story Bimonthly, Slugest, Jack the Daw, Mobius, Thunder Sandwich, Cooweescoowee, and Plum Biscuit. Poetry credits include The Chicago Seed and New American Movement Newspaper. His book of short stories, The Infinity of Days in the Psychotic Atomik Empire is available now via Plain View Press in Texas. The book is also available at Amazon.com. A review by literary critic, Barbara Foley, can be found at his website gregoryalannorton.com.Before moving to Chicago's Uptown neighborhood, his family came from Pays des Illinois, specifically that part of Old Upper Louisiana around Vincennes, Indiana. Born into the Vincennois community, he is a French American writer with relatives on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a lifelong activist in the labor, civil rights, peace, and ecology movements.

Book preview

Meditations, Magic, and Manslaughter

a novella

by

Gregory Alan Norton

Book Dedication

À mon arrière-grand-père,

S’il vous plait, ne revenez pas me hanter.

Ton arrière petit-fils,

Pete.

Copyright 2021 Gregory Alan Norton

All rights reserved. Limited sections of the work may be reprinted for reviews and academic efforts. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. All characters is this work are entirely fictional an not based on any person alive or deceased. Locations are fictional. Story lines are fictional and not based on any real stories. Fictional books may be mentioned. In no way is this work of fiction true to life.

Contents

Preface

Author Biography

Other Books Currently Available

How to Connect With Me

April 1918

Alain Lefebvre

Meditation

Meditations

Magic

Verdict

The Midnight Special

Suggested Group Discussion Guide

Start a Story from An Infinity of Days in the Psychotic Atomik Empire

Preface

Meditations, Magic, and Manslaughter is the second book in a series of four books. The first book which carries the series name is The Elevated Train to Utopia. The first book will be published last. The other two books; The Rifles, the Radical, and the Lowry Band, and The Fair, the Fakir, and the Ferris Wheel will be published in sequence, although the interior story dating varies. For more information about the author or to sign up for the e-mail newsletter, go to www.gregoryalannorton.com

Author Biography

Norton has been a lifelong activist in the civil rights, peace, and labor movements. He served as an organizer and newspaper editor the United Steelworkers and has served in other unions as well including the International Association of Machinists. Before moving to Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, his family came from Pays des Illinois, specifically that part of Old Upper Louisiana around Vincennes, Indiana. Born into the Vincennois community, he is a French American writer with relatives on both sides of the Atlantic. If you would like more proof that Norton has been fighting the World Imperial Korporation, ask for his FBI Files. He likes to proudly display them like everyone else from the 1960s did from Sartre to the Chicago 7. The FBI files will probably start appearing in the Back Matter of future books coming to publication. Everyone should be aware that their taxes are funding America’s Secret Police.

Other Books Currently Available

Check my author’s page at Amazon.com to see what’s currently in print. Links will take you directly to the ordering page of the correct publisher. https://www.amazon.com/Gregory-Alan-Norton/e/B002BM9YES

How to Connect With Me

Go to my author’s website, www.gregoryalannorton.com and click on the email contact. You will automatically be put on a list for future book publications, free giveaways, and have a direct link to contact me. You are also welcome to ask to be a friend on Facebook.

April 1918

The pounding on the front screen door grew louder, then whoever had heavily treaded across the front porch began banging on the storm door. Joseph Fournier moved aside the curtains and peered out his porch window, but couldn’t see who had put his house under siege. Hey, anybody at home? the stranger yelled.

It was Sunday in Rainbow, Indiana, and Joseph and his oldest son, Albert had been sitting at the kitchen table discussing in order of importance; how the grape vines looked that Spring, what they were going to do for work because their coal mine had already gone into its annual summer shut down, and how one of Albert’s younger brothers was doing as a French translator in the US Army in France. Curiously, the Army had currently stationed him not far from the family hometown of Mons, Belgium. The younger Fournier brothers were employed at two different mines and were still working, so some money still flowed into the household. The Rainbow region, in southwest Indiana, was famous for its coal reserves.

Then the whole clapboard house started shaking from a renewed, more energetic pounding.

I read the article in the newspaper about the dogs. I want to rent your dogs, the stranger bellowed.

The stranger, of course, was referring to an article that had recently appeared in a Terre Haute, Indiana newspaper written by Celestine Thibodaux which had described the Fournier’s canine’s super hunting abilities. The dogs, on command, would run around to the back of a tree and flush out any squirrels lurking there, causing them to come around to the side of the tree where the hunter stood poised and ready to pick off his lunch. For the French Vincennois community clustered around Vincennes, Indiana these abilities were highly prized because the coal miners in the region typically had no work and no paychecks during the summers. Nobody burned much coal during the hot and humid Midwestern Summers.

Comon, open-up!

Reluctantly Joseph opened the door and was confronted by a very large Anglo with a shotgun strapped to his back, a game sack hanging around his neck, and a large bottle of whiskey in his left hand. I’m here for the dogs! The man leaned forward and Joseph was enveloped in whiskey breath.

I’m sorry, the dogs are not for rent.

What? Do you speak English?

I am speaking English.

Albert, who was significantly taller than his diminutive father, stepped around Joseph and said, Mister, the dogs are not for rent.

"What? The newspaper