Bartians: Fear and Loathing in Terrence Malick's Cortices

Based on James Joyce's "Dubliners," "Bartians" offers a retro-1990's portrait - humorous, violent, and spinning with political subtext - of the Okie queer identity, creeping out of history from the stories of a city whose unique take on Americana has long fascinated artists and investors like the filmmaker Terrence Malick. The citizens of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, expose their faults, hopes, and pain in a compilation of 14 short stories about not-so-everyday life. An Iraq War soldier's funeral is hastily planned. A yoga instructor struggles with addiction. A football player asks another boy to prom to spite his teacher. A group high school transgender students and misfits find a safe place to hide from the Y2K apocalypse. A formerly respectable doctor is ostracized. A politician and his family find themselves at the center of a scandal. A group of rough women sneak backstage at an Itzhak Perlman concert. Each short story exposes the wondrous and often menacing forces behind the pains and triumphs of the people called Bartians.

This novel is the fourth in Kevin Snow's gonzo journalism series. It covers such news topics as the Oklahoma teachers' strike, the opioid epidemic, PTSD and the Iraq War, and the arson of Shin'enKan. Each novel in the series can be read either independently as a standalone book or in sequential order.