Mr. Joe Randazzo

Afterworld: the Divine Comedy of Thomas Buchetta Mr. Joe Randazzo

What Happens When You're Dead? Thomas Buchetta, failed writer and first-class Jerk Being, is about to find out. And so are we. Hint: there are no angels with halos and harps in this comic romp through the AfterWorld. Thomas is assigned a Guide to show him the ropes of his new domain, a very attractive woman named Rose. If he could just stop thinking about having sex with her, he might learn something. Among the first places he visits are the Rooms--Room Head Shrink, Room Total Peace, Room 27 (where every inhabitant is a musician who died at age 27), and Room PAP (Puerile American People)--to name but a few of the thousands of groups that make up EtherWorld, the Good place. There is another place, the Evil domain called NetherWorld where Beelzie the Bub and his cohorts Attila the Hun and the infamous Chopper, drink their red bourbon and plot dark deeds against Humans. As he glides through Free Space, Thomas encounters famous people and learns their secrets. He finally gets to ask Frank Stockton what was behind the door, the lady or the tiger. He sits at the bar in Gabriel's Hideaway and Amelia Earhart tells him what really went on in the cockpit before she crashed. He's amazed to see what Cleopatra actually looked like. Frank Sinatra shows him how to pick up trashy Sector D women. He plays music with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. Anastasia reveals her fate at the hands of the Bolsheviks in 1918. Thomas has more than a little Evil in him and is lucky to have been assigned to Sector C in EtherWorld. But can he grow, can he come closer to understanding what matters, while all around him the eternal battle of Good and Evil rages? He himself will play a part in the biggest battle of all on his way to becoming an Enlightened, rather than Jerk, Being. Rose might even come to like him just a little.