Publisher: 8th House Publishing

Publication Date: March 4, 2024

Haystacks Kane is a professional wrestler. A 607-pound professional wrestler. He has been preyed upon, handled, his innate kindness and gentle good nature harvested by unscrupulous promoters and his conniving manager, an ex-wife and fellow denizens of the seamy netherworld he inhabits, the ravenous crowds with a thirst for violent cheap thrills-and sometimes for blood.

Now, gravely injured and unable to speak, he lies motionless in his hospital bed, immobilized, his body broken. Visitors from his past and present enter and leave the room-or perhaps only his disordered inner world. They offer up counterpoint to his own silent ruminations as he drifts in and out of consciousness seeking to uncover the deeper truth of his existence, rummaging through the trunk of his memories to discover exactly what 'it' is-the 'it' that has deprived him of his wife, taken every member of his family from him, laid him low, and the 'it' that will release him from the bonds of his history and transport him to Greece, the Eden he dreams of, his true self set free at last.

The novel's final moments prompt the reader to decide for him- or herself what Haystacks' ultimate fate will be-a decision that will reveal in turn the reader's own worldview, where he or she can be found on the continuum of hope vs. fear.

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About the Author

STEVE SCHLAM was born in New York City and has lived in cities and towns across the U.S.A. and in Mexico. An actor as well as an author, he has performed on stages in all the places he has called home and earned a Masters Degree in Creative Writing and English under the tutelage of Joseph Heller, renowned author of Catch-22. The Harvesting of Haystacks Kane is his first published novel.