Synopsis: As God Looked On is a dark comedic narrative with threads that begin on a bus ride to Daytona and along a mountainside in southern Mexico: one young woman running from a murder and away from her young son; a young Mexican boy and his aunt heading to America after being kidnapped by drug lords. The threads knot in Tennessee and again . . . somewhere else. Along the way to that somewhere:  a female serial killer in an Irish Punk Band; a badly deformed man obsessed with the movie, Remember the Alamo; a Gulf War vet suffering from PTSD; and . . . four cheerleaders and an iPod.

Available June 2016

ISBN:978-1-60489-163-8   Cloth cover $30.00        Sale: $13.00

ISBN:978-1-60489-164-5   Trade paper $19.95       Sale: $7.00

About the Author: 

Jim Harris holds a master’s from Southern Illinois in Creative Writing. He currently works in computer technology. He and his wife Amy have two children, Mollie and Sadie. They currently live in The St. Louis area.

"There on the east side of a wraparound wooden porch Seymour sat
looking at the white bark of a catalpa tree and then on through the
leaves of the tree to the rolling wheat field that had a lone
anvil-shaped little oil well pumping away in the middle of it. The
anvil-shaped oil well was bright blue except for the heavy rust around
its edges.That little oil well pumped out 5 gallons a month. Roger said he kept
the equivalent of two of the barrels a month and the rest went back
into Seymour’s account at the Ridgway Bank. It wasn’t much and back in
the 70’s when his Uncle Bud put that oil well in it produced upwards
of 15 barrels a month.
        “It might never stop though,” Roger had said. Roger had left now. He
had work to do.
        Seymour decided to spend some time with Renoir. He had a book on
Renoir that was at the top of a box full of art and history books and
the one thing about Renoir was that his impressionism was accidental
and he really wanted to be a realist but when he tried to be a realist
it didn’t work out. Renoir’s painting, Bal du moulin de la Galette,
was Seymour’s favorite painting. He had a replica of it boxed up
somewhere.
        “When I tried to be a teacher it didn’t work out either,” Seymour
said. He looked around. There was nothing but a breeze to hear him.
        Renoir, for a brief time, from about 1865-1886, tried to paint in a
more structured classical style that had less color, more definition,
and was ultimately not a very good period for him. Then, in 1890, the
same year Groucho Marx and Ho Chi Minh were born, and the same year
Vincent Van Gogh shot and killed himself, Renoir returned to lighter
colors and vague outlines around the edges of his figures and, focused
on nudes (young women exclusively) and domestic scenes.
        Seymour nodded. Him too. At the height of his teaching, when he was
leading long legged young women to High School volleyball sectionals,
he would very carefully pull off Stephanie’s panties in a hotel room
on Michigan Avenue, and, starting at that area just above her belly
button, he would slowly work his way down until her thighs trembled as
they clung sweatlocked to his neck…"