Stories from the Age of Distraction is a love letter to the art of storytelling. It is a tale about two friends that invent a storytelling app in an effort to save creative expression which they feel is in grave danger due to the rise of modern communication devices.
“Stories from the Age of Distraction” is a novel about two friends that set out to do what perhaps few can achieve in this age of smart technology, use social media to combat the disease of distraction. Imagine the act of posting, pinning and tweeting fueling a communication renaissance instead of a broad, linguistic decline?
This new work of contemporary literary fiction transcends the impersonal dialogue of our times with a fresh, observational style and a uniquely creative perspective. It is a call to arms to take back the written word and reignite the art of storytelling.
“The digital age is an imagination killer …We think in acronyms. We truncate. We’re losing our oral tradition … We’re on the verge of losing our identity!”
When the novel’s main protagonists, Morgan Byrnes, a speech writer, and Percy Chadwick, a school teacher, detect a dire “communication crisis,” they set out to defiantly save our modern vernacular. The pair has been writing stories back and forth on Facebook for years, but when others start adding to their storyline, the idea for a global app is born.
“I want to create a communication renaissance. I’m not talking about an easier way to book a restaurant or find a hotel. I’m talking about a shared, interactive global story …”
After turning down funding from the all-powerful, all-controlling “Silicons,” Morgan and Percy decide to go it alone. They develop their app with the help of freelance techno-savant, Rowley Gaines. As their first global E-Book unfolds, the trio journeys across continents and time zones moving in and out of the lives of tragic and heroic characters.
There are gamblers, surfers, dress-makers and dreamers; and when the lines between virtual reality and actuality get blurred, our three heroes find themselves on a remote island in the South Atlantic - the ideal ecosystem to stop, embrace nature, confirm reality, and come face to face with those things that make stories so timeless and the desire to tell them so universal.
“The journey was neither a small step nor a giant leap … it was an epic vault of consciousness for all those that had lost touch with their soul.”
Accompanied by the titans of world literature, the book is a story-within-a story that re-connects us to art, self-expression, and modern romanticism so we can claim the dynamic conversation of our time. The book is packed with the words and whispers of Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Dylan Thomas, WB Yeats, Herman Melville, Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Franz Kafka, Eudora Welty, etc.
For his part in the creative odyssey, Rowley Gaines is profoundly and utterly changed. Failing to differentiate between his virtual comfort zone and his earthly soul, his pursuit of a fictional character consumes the book’s final chapters.
“He had been defragged to the bone, and he could no Google™ or Bing™ his way back into the human race.”
“Stories from the Age of Distraction: The Island” is the first in a series of narratives about the impact of technology on relationships, creative expression, and the timeless tradition of stories.
Excerpt
"Stories are the familiar shoes we wear on our long walks through common experience. Since the beginning of time, storytellers have helped to catalog and preserve the human condition. They have held the power of memory, familiarity, and wistfulness over our collective consciousness. The storyteller describes, imparts, paints, and portrays the world with the precision of a timeless artisan.
Stories are the verbal albums that chronicle our fleeting days and nights, and the lives of those that came before us. They are the wisdom of mothers, the sage advice of fathers, the admonitions of grandparents, and the easy laughter of a friend.
When life slows down, when our mind seeks sleep, and our eyes search for dreams … it is the stories that recline in the back of our mind to ease us into peace."
Professional Reviews
Jack Magnus
Patricia M. Mahon's contemporary literary fiction work, Stories from the Age of Distraction: The Island, Volume 1, is the stuff of dreams. Her heroes, Morgan and Percy, set out to reclaim oral traditions by venturing into the digital domain. Their quest is an ambitious one, and the only open door is through a former roommate of her brother. I had a marvelous time following these otherworldly dreamers as they reach out into the ether and find kindred spirits -- hundreds of them. The stories that evolve are marvelous and work perfectly with the continuing saga of Morgan and Percy. This work within a work is beautifully scripted with characters who quickly seem like friends and whose quest becomes a universal one. Stories from the Age of Distraction: The Island, Volume 1 is edgy, original and very compelling. It's most highly recommended.
Rabia Tanveer
Patricia M. Mahon has done a brilliant job with a topic that has created constant debate … with the age of “virtual society,” people have been losing connection with their loved ones. Stories from the Age of Distraction: The Island not only raises voice about the topic, but she actually gives us a solution to the distractions of our age. I really enjoyed that, especially the linguistic abilities of the writer. She made me fall in love with words once again. A really good novel.
KC Finn
I found “Stories from the Age of Distraction: The Island” to be a philosophical read, one in which you really have to step back and admire the overall message, rather than simply the plot itself, which paints a very specific picture of our times and makes an interesting commentary on the future of literature. Overall, I’d recommend this book to readers who enjoy thought provoking philosophical ideas and educated, revolutionary characters.
