Rant

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Be careful. You may be infected with rabies.

Buster “Rant” Casey uncovers a huge wealth that turns his tiny rural town on its head. He needs to get out of there.  So he becomes obsessed with getting bitten by anything venomous—snakes, spiders, and whatever else he can find. Loving the side effect that is a big ol’ erection, he uses it to get an early diploma and a nice fat check to get him out of town.

Rant arrives in the city which the reader discovers is the opposite of a utopian society. All the residents take on their appropriate character of respectable Daytimers and oppressed Nighttimers—all due to a strictly enforced curfew.

A new Nighttimer, Rant tries to fit in with the “Party Crashers”, a group of demolition derby-ers who crash into other cars adorned with that night’s “flag”. A mattress on top of the car, words written on the rear windshield. As Rant becomes more entwined in the life of the “Party Crashers” he meets and falls in love with Echo Lawrence. He also starts a nationwide rabies epidemic that causes everyone who is infected to be shot and killed on the spot.

Rant comes from the point of view of people who knew Rant Casey. Through changes in space and time, you find out that Rant may be present in more than one person, could possibly be dead, and may have tried to kill or marry his mother. Seriously.

So, next time you think about tying a mattress or Christmas tree to the top of your car, think again, my friends.

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Chuck On Rant

"For 'Rant' I borrowed the form of an oral biography, wherein dozens of people are interviewed about the same person, then those interviews are cut together. Like a 'talking head' type of documentary film. The only person not present is the subject: Rant Casey, an updated Huckleberry Finn in a messy, crowded near-future. Cars, traffic, and accidents all play parts, with chunks of the through-line action presented as radio traffic reports. Of course there's a romance. And of course it's confronting and occasionally violent. And sickening or sexy. The glory of the 'oral biography' form is how it allows the story to cut instantly from one plot thread to another, or from the 'camera' perspective of one character to another, while both describe the same event. This let me boil each statement down to the minimal plot point so that the action moves blam, blam, blam through the entire twisted life and death of Rant."

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