Crashing

Crashing is a cross between Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat and Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Appalachian giant Frank Baker and Oakridge townie Mark Holz have a simple mission in life–to get messed up drinking and smoking dope. John Holz, Oakridge businessman, kills Luke Baker in a fit of rage and is dragged down by guilt. Stir in unfaithful housewife/writer Jean Holz and you have the makings of a disaster. The local country club and the hillbilly trailer park just down the road provide a juxtaposition of social levels that provides the framework of the novel. The Consumer Society unravels in this novel set in 1977 in fictional Oakridge, Ohio.