Stumblebum Waytes

A man retires, afflicted by an undisclosed illness. As he recovers and grows stronger, he learns to separate fevers from dreams and dreams from reality. In his quest for meaning and under the light of several moons, he forms a band of rustic serenaders called Stumblebum Waytes, whose sole purpose is to play for small gratuities in the Village of Blight. A new calculus forms and the protagonist, Billy Hornpipe, dispenses with purpose and meaning. Free of fever, he chooses to live one day at a time.

Stumblebum Waytes is an exploration of retirement psychology, dreams, un-reality, reality, and ideals besot by fevers. An unintentional sequel to the author’s earlier work, Jimmy Crack Corn: A Novel in C Minor, Stumblebum Waytes is a story about something and a story about nothing.

PRAISE FOR GLENN CARLEY’S PREVIOUS NOVEL, JIMMY CRACK CORN: A NOVEL IN C MINOR

＂The author presents a biographical account in a very different manner than I have ever read before. It moves from external action to internal thought. It gyrates from the present to the past and back again to the present. It about a real person and real events, yet ’Jimmy the Bleeder’, ’Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion’, ’Fizzy’and ’Bumbo’ are universal. The towns of ’Oncewuz’ and ’Neverwuz’ arouse both pain and nostalgia in the protagonist and the reader. The ’Charred City’ introduces both despair and hope. The author uses prose skillfully and adds poetry and even musical chords.... Reading this novel can be painful but it is ultimately hopeful and very human as the protagonist ＂learns to be very good at something he never intended to do.＂ ---Mark Creedon, author of Two Hearts in Toronto and Caught Between Two Devils