Status Schmo: One Man Against the Status Quo

By: Burt Walker

Narrated by: Ross Ticknor

The quintessential pause-resister political thriller.

There’s a lesson for everyone in this novel: You are Joe Schmo. You just don’t know it yet.

When small-town everyman, Joe Winston, aka Joe Schmo, is confronted with seemingly endless, unjustified attacks from every level of government, the lives of his family are left in ruins. Their story catches the eye of some popular social media influencers who chronicle the tragedy, one event at a time. Eventually, the country is cheering him on, culminating in an unprecedented viral response. The well-oiled machines of two-party politics find themselves on the defensive. They’re not used to it and they’re not happy about it.

If it weren’t for Walker’s sharp, stinging voice and his frequent use of humor (though sometimes crude), the story might be too depressing to listen. But fear not, hilarity ensues just when you need the relief. Walker has the unique ability to build you up to your maximum level of disgust and rage, then diffuse it with a one-liner, setting the stage for you to absorb yet another calamity without banging your head against the wall.

The story is further strengthened by the author’s note that each of the terrible events encountered by the Winstons are based on “actual cases that have happened to real people in the United States, all of them in recent years”. It’s superbly well researched in addition to being a powerful testament to the power of the human spirit and self-preservation in the face of adversity. You’ll find yourself doing a fist-pump each time Joe and his wife fight back.

Experience the mounting suspense in each delicious section, quite possibly leaving you unable to stop listening. Unique in its style, it’s fair to call it a crossover of the biblical story of Job, fiction by Rand and Orwell, and the humorous satire of P.J. O’Rourke.

©2018 Burt Walker (P)2021 Burt Walker

Critic reviews

"The story told by Walker is all about frustrated, social-media skillful taxpayers exposing the doings of government for all to see, and discrediting it in the process. Good for the private citizens who aid Joe Winston in Status Schmo, good for the private sector for it creating the technology that will force those who presume to harass us to act differently, and good for Walker. Our side needs novels like his. Limited government is good for Joe Winston, and so it is it good for all of us. Thank you to Burt Walker for entertaining readers on the way to a better understanding of why we’re better off when government does the least." (John Tamny, author, editor of RealClearMarkets, Director of the Center for Economic Freedom at FreedomWorks, and a senior economic adviser to Toreador Research and Trading)