The last time Lauren had gone to the Psychic Institute, she paid sixty bucks and was told she was a reincarnated mermaid from another planet. How stupid would a hitchhiking, pool-shooting landscaper have to be to impregnate a former alien mermaid? How idiotic would he have to be to sleep in cornfields, hitchhike with white supremacists, and consume a pillowcase full of mushrooms just to figure it out? Wallop is a budget crust-punk epic, an oogle ode set in the house parties and open roads of wasteland America, a manifesto for the crusty dirt bag who's just trying to get something, anything, back on track. // "For anyone who's ever wondered what it's like to hitchhike through Kansas, sleep in a cornfield, or join the underground Missouri punk scene, Wallop is a thrilling read. Self-critical while never self-indulgent, Perkins has crafted a smart and refreshing twist on a familiar genre. Through witty prose and wry humor, he achieves a delicate balance of nihilism and hope, resulting in an ultimately moving perspective of one man struggling to find meaning in contemporary life." - ISA MAZZEI, author of Camgirl

Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.

Harry Gainesborough wrote a children's story called "Zod Wallop". And then his daughter died. Now Raymond Story, a patient at Harwood Psychiatric Hospital and Harry's biggest fan, has escaped--to find Harry in his remote cabin. Raymond is convinced that the people, creatures, and places of "Zod Wallop" are real. And as events transpire, Harry begins to wonder if Raymond is right.

Located in Accomack County on Virginia's Eastern Shore, Wallops Island was once a primitive swath of land, uncivilized but by the wild ponies and mosquitoes that made its scrub-covered shores their home. But as the centuries passed, the wildness of the island was radically altered by the influx of colonists, then vacationers, and, eventually, some of the brightest scientific minds in the country. The history of Wallops Island has been one of transition. In the colonial period, John Wallop, an industrious man and self-made millionaire, was granted much of the island's acreage by the English Crown for providing assistance to new colonists trying to reach Virginia. In 1889, Wallops Island was bought and converted into a vacation destination for a handful of wealthy families from Pennsylvania, who, in turn, sold the island to the federal government in the 1940s. Once in the hands of NASA the island was transformed into a center for the high-tech development of rockets, missiles, and the means for space travel. From weather balloons and Tiamat missiles to aerodynamics and hurricane research, the Wallops Island Flight Facility and its predecessors have been instrumental in the evolution and success of the American space program.