Sinking the Ark

Sinking the Ark tells the story of a fictional "alternative" weekly in Portland, Oregon. In 1974 Rose City Ark embarks on a bold experiment: to dispense with hierarchy and operate as a true democratic collective: no more assigned roles, every person deciding for themselves what work to do, all important decisions henceforth made not by some boss, but by the paper as a whole reaching consensus through discussion. Ah, democracy! Can it work? Can the people of the Ark really put an issue on the stands once a week, every week, week after week, operating on these principles? Well, thereby hangs the tale. The novel follows the interweaving stories of six characters who find that complications such as romantic entanglements ... sexual politics... jealousy and backstabbing... and ideological impurities to name only a few issues make perfection damned hard to achieve. This is a coming-of-age historical novel set in a time between ages: when the din of "the sixties" has faded away but the "Reagan Revolution" is yet to come. The Digital Age is just around the corner, but no one can see around corners. At the Ark, even the headlines are pressed out by hand, artisan-style. What Sval, Marica, Zoe, Martha, Raoul, and George are bracing for, what they believe to be right around the corner, is the epic global collapse of industrial civilization, after which "the world will be right back to tribal," and they, the fortunate few who saw the future coming in time to survive the apocalypse will be building the better world that will rise from the rubble. That better world might be most notable to modern readers by its absence; but modern readers might also recognize the spirit animating the Rose City six as an enduring feature of human life, born anew with each new generation entering its twenties.