The Ark of the Oven Mitt

By: James Gordon

Narrated by: James Gordon

A story about the power of stories! It's a novel. It's an album. It's The Ark Of The Oven Mitt.

A reporter for a Canadian music magazine is asked to do a "where-are-they-now" story about Miles and Myles, a popular band in the ‘80s.

Maddie Myles, the charismatic lead singer, leaves her partner and the band at the height of its fame and disappears. Her ex, Miles Gerber, has been touring the bar circuit for 20 years with his own group, Miles Gerber and The Shit Disturbers. As the audience declines, Miles says each night that they are "searching for the end of the music business". Miles is unwilling to be interviewed, so the reporter gives an old tape recorder to the group’s drummer, who gives us a rolling report on the slow decline of the band, and the music business in general.

One day, in their beat-up touring van, they pick up a dynamic young woman at the side of the road, who starts them on a new journey: not an ending, but a new direction that leads to a revival, and lots of self-discovery for Miles. Along the way they learn the value of community, and the power of stories.

In Part Two, they accidentally find themselves at the center of an embryonic "utopian colony" with a festival atmosphere, which is where the unusual title of the book comes from. Miles writes songs along the way that tell the story of the challenges of a changing world, compelling tales of those who have fallen in between the cracks of a system that has left them behind.

With humor, and 36 original songs, we laugh, learn, and love along with a rag-tag bunch of characters who find resolution and fulfillment after years of drifting along an endless highway.

©2021 James Gordon (P)2021 James Gordon