The Road to Hell

The unofficial book of 2020. James Calemine's The Road to Hell is a collection of fictional short stories illustrated with Calemine's haunting photographs. These gritty stories deal with mass shootings, hurricanes, social media addiction, power grids, corruption, gambling, a criminal liar, toxic water, graveyard spirits, UFO's in the Okefenokee Swamp, the Coronavirus, and other eerie realities of life in Modern American.

Ghosts of Gram Parsons, Bessie Smith, Blind Willie McTell, The Allman Brothers Band and Robert Johnson echo through these stories. The fictional vignettes retain their own morality. The truth proves even more dangerous these days. Telling the truth can make you feel like a boot-legger racing to the county line at midnight. The truth can get you black-balled, black-listed or worse.

As one reviewer writes: "The best part of the book lies in the brevity of the stories. Each one is enough to stimulate thought. The stage is set, the action put into motion, and then the reader is left to their own devices. Your imagination takes over, your soul gets engaged in the matter. Each story is a type of warning and Calemine serves as an oracle. Do we continue down the road of greed, lust, selfishness, and vengeance while technology, anger, substance abuse, political strife, or apathy wreck the world? Or do we reach back to our virtues and ideals? ... The reader has to engage the story. Passivity is not an option. To read these stories is to become a part of them yourself. There are familiar faces waiting behind each page. You will probably even find yourself in there." All the Biscuits in Georgia

The Road to Hell counts as Calemine's second work of fiction and his fourth book published by Snake Nation Press.