by Kevin Bartelme

In The Tin Hat, his fifth humorous work of fiction with Coolgrove, author Kevin Bartelme brings us another biting satire about our culture’s fast slide into disturbing, uncharted territory. Not new to that critical point of view, our author lends us his literary goggles to witness hosts of science deniers submitting to delusional superstitions in hot, blind pursuit of their measures of success. Through deft application of dramatic devices he allow us a comedic gaze at outrageous behavior in the light of wise hindsight to be found in the best of ancient Greek comedians—writing as they were, in an already mature democracy—no strangers to diversity and valuing truth over correctness. In street parlance, Bartelme tells it like it is. Perhaps the stars will be aligned this fateful summer of 2020 for tired Americans to step back and be entertained by this author’s talent for treating heavy subjects with a light touch.When Professor Ted Gershem and his graduate school abnormal psychology seminar participants investigate conspiracy theorists diverse as flat-earthers and gluten rejectors they encounter a slew of Cassandras who warn them about everything from the Reptilians to the Bilderbergers. Before long they find themselves plunged in bizzare world-views where nothing is what it seems and where dark, unseen forces, battle for control of our minds. In this outrageous gambol through the dark side of New York, the group gets more than what they bargained for as they’re drawn into bizarre, off the wall situations involving eccentrics with exceedingly ‘rich inner lives’ dwelling in nothing but alternate realities propounded by, among other extreme tin hatters, a cabal of Ayn Rand revivalists. We are taken on a painless romp through an America gone soft on science but fallen hard