Books by John David Wells

A "bony-headed psychopath" makes his two step-sons clear out rats in the basement; a traveling American finds horror in a Casablanca opium den; a young man is driven insane by the voice of English writer Daniel Defoe; a former black player in the Negro Leagues tells the awful truth about why he quit playing; a grieving family tries to understand why a loved one committed suicide; and a drummer in a rock band hallucinates the Apostle John from the Book of Revelation flashing out of an MTV video. Reading Glitteration in the Night and Other Stories is like having a veil lifted from your eyes, revealing a world more intense, terrifying, and imaginary than you ever thought possible. Traveling through the book we meet an unforgettable cast of characters driven to all sorts of depravity---drugs---sex---suicide---madness---as they hurl ninety miles an hour down dangerous dead-end streets. Glitteration in the Night and Other Stories reveals in stark detail the omnipresence of the grotesque in everyday life. Mired in dystopia, these people have lost their fragile hold on sanity, entering a world where reality is up for grabs, bizarre and brutally ugly. Often they are innocent victims torn between the heartless demands of society and the desire to maintain their sense of identity and freedom.

Set against the backdrop of a deeply troubled, psychotic female student infecting men with the AIDS virus and a fanatical board member taking over the college, The Plague Year is a Swiftian black satire of college life in the mid-nineties.This haunting detective story echoes Daniel Defoe's The Journal of the Plague Year in its stunning depiction of the horrors and fears of a spreading disease.The Plague Year is a searing indictment of modern college life and delves deeply into the self-absorbed, narcissistic lives of some contemporary college students.When a favorite professor does not return for the school year, two students, Danny, a journalist for the school paper, and Emily, a philosophy major, join forces to find out why the professor did not return to teaching. Their findings are shocking and the whole school is thrown into turmoil.In the end, readers will become strangely attracted to these college students, who yearn to escape the emptiness of their lives and find meaning in a chaotic and disturbing world.