In BALLARD motor court, there is a moment in which Ballard is alone in the convenience store. He is checking packing lists and listening to a radio program on the life of the composer Bohislav Martinu. The radio announcer talks of the bell tower in which Martinu spent his childhood: his father was a fire warden; the family lived in the tower so that they might look out over the town and countryside for signs of fire.

While listening to this radio program, something inside Ballard clicks and he begins to realize what has happened to him and who has saved him from the attempt on his life. That moment, the program and Ballard’s reaction to it, formed the beginning of this new book, BALLARD the republic of dogs.

The first scene I wrote (in screenplay form, actually) was from what ended up being the fifth (of six) chapters in the book: RC in a bell tower. Looks out over the desert floor through binoculars. Thinks he sees trouble coming. Alerts the town below. But is proven to be mistaken as the threat is merely dust thrown up by an approaching car.

BALLARD the republic of dogs was then written—forward and backward—from that one scene.

But … in reality, “The Republic of Dogs” dates back 30 years. I made several attempts at that time to write a just-pre-apocalyptic story about a community huddled on the edge of a desert, plagued by attacks from packs of dogs. Its theme, embarrassingly enough, was that the viciousness of the dogs paled in comparison to the wretchedness of the humans in the desert town.

Mercifully (for the sake of literature), I was never able to take that story anywhere, and all I was left with was a title that continued to haunt me through the years. And to which I ultimately returned when the BALLARD universe began to take shape.

I don’t know how it works for writers with greater talent than mine. For me, these ideas seem to percolate for ever, in various forms through the years, and then, one day, when I’ve lived long enough to become good enough to give them life, they emerge, as if for the first time.

BALLARD the republic of dogs is now available for sale on all the usual e-reading platforms.

Like its predecessor, it contains a selection of my own black-and-white iPhone photography as chapter headers. It’s about 28K words (compared to 23K for BALLARD motor court), which makes it longish for a novella.

There are six chapters in BALLARD the republic of dogs. Each chapter consists—for reasons that will become clear by the end of the story—of 14 sections.

The first chapter takes place 63 years ago. The second chapter takes place 50 years after that. Chapters three through six take place Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, and The day after tomorrow.

All six chapters are set in the fictional California desert towns of Clarksdale and Vicksburg; all six chapters are set in our world, as it might have existed, or might one day exist.

Readers of BALLARD motor court will notice that while the same character names are employed in BALLARD the republic of dogs they are attached to people who are different ages, professions, and even genders from their motor court incarnations. You can see this most easily on the About page.

I don’t honestly remember why I decided on this naming convention. It was probably a boring reason, though, so just as well.

I’ll write some more on the composition of BALLARD the republic of dogs over the next couple of weeks. But, to be honest, since I’m already 15 pages into the final BALLARD book (BALLARD bonus expeditionary force), I’ll have to reconstruct those thoughts from the dim mists of August through November of 2012. As a result, some fibbing may ensue …

I hope you liked BALLARD motor court and I hope you will like BALLARD the republic of dogs even more. I don’t know if it’s a better book or not. It feels like it is to me. But you’ll decide that, of course.

Pamela whirls on him. —I told you to let him alone. Now stop!

And Clyde whacks her in the mouth with the back of his hand, knock her head back a little and a little blood appears between her lips on her front teeth. But she stands her ground and shows him the blood on her teeth with a tight smile.

Ballard walks into Clarksdale, looking over his shoulder like a man with a hundred hell-hounds on his trail. There’s a howling out on the desert floor.

He mutters to himself. —We live in a republic of dogs.

It’s soon after midnight; half-moon hanging lazy in a night sky flecked with stars. Ballard sees Joe, padlocking the church door. —Little late for services, preacher?

—Weather not fit for man nor beast, says RC to himself. —Weather not fit for man nor beast, he keeps repeating.

The heat rises off the cracked clay road in waves. The road is empty; RC walks down the middle of it in the uncanny noonday hot.  Hot that can make a body sit down and ponder why he’s out in it and not out of it.

Pascal moves back and forth between the tables and the F-150, lugging foil-covered plastic bowls, plastic jugs of water. Ballard follows her on these journeys with cases of beer and soda pop; smacks her ass when the opportunity presents itself. She shrieks:

—I am too damn old for this tomfoolery!

He sidles up next to her, traps her against a table with his hip, arms full of cases of cans; whispers with his hand on her rounded belly:

—You’re 50, baby; I’d say we got us a goddamned miracle right here.

Lulu drags a wicker chair over the rough wood of the porch so that she is sitting next to the old woman. She pulls out a folder of black-and-white photographs. Ballard leans against the porch railing, eyes scanning down the wash along the side of Athena’s property. Sees some dogs scurrying through the brush.

—There are ghosts in these pictures, Miss Athena. In those days, to make a picture, you had to leave the lens open for a long time. That created … anomalies. People who moved into or out of the frame during the exposure time often left behind ghost images of themselves. You can see some of those in these flood photos.

Athena wears thick boots and carries a shovel and a rucksack. She slogs through ankle-deep mud down the center of the ruined post-flood town, heading up the hill for the church. In the churchyard, the headstones in the burial ground extrude from the earth like ground-down teeth.

He points to a smaller group of graves, some of which have relatively fresh flowers on them but none of which are freshly dug, around an empty fountain and a small stone statue of an angel.

—Yes. Those are ours. All these others are from over the mountain. They come in wagons, sometimes five or six at a time. Can we go inside?

Joe takes his hat off, bows his head in the rain to the rapidly muddying unmarked graves.

To himself: —For all my friends out on the burial ground.

All of these artists found their way into BALLARD the republic of dogs in one way or another.

Francis Bacon

Jackson Pollock

JMW Turner

Philip Guston

Ed Ruscha

Michael Ackerman

Mark Rothko

William Gedney

Stephen Strom

Walker Evans

Robert Frank

Miroslav Tichy