Book excerpt: The haunting memory of conversation lost in an eternal twilight. Wild symphonies arising from the trash piles beneath the freeway. A lurching midnight ride down steep mountain roads toward the sea. The Midnight Cuckoo is a dizzying anthology of seemingly random experience told through twelve short stories and twelve free verses. The narrator is an awestruck observer, hurling like a cosmic roller coaster through unforeseen moments of joy and sorrow, discovery and loss. Curious by nature, the narrator shares an unbiased view of the world that reveals transformational meaning in seemingly mundane events. Likewise, in an inversion of literary convention, reality becomes indistinct and hallucinatory. Often overlooked moments of experience become an incendiary vision of what it means to be alive. In SRErwin's words, "The most enlightening experiences of a lifetime are often those ablaze with madness." Part meditation, part catharsis, The Midnight Cuckoo flows with chaos and passion, sweeping the reader along a river of extraordinary beauty.