A cultural satire, McKenzie Rising follows the MegaMax Corporation’s venture to turn the upper McKenzie Valley into an upscale development, the Estates at Rancho Rio. Having already bought out the regional state university, MegaMax is poised to complete its acquisition of the upper McKenzie, and its efforts are overseen by Marta Juggernaut, Wharton School MBA graduate and project manager at Rancho Rio, and by Mark Neighbors, Northwest Acquisitor for MegaMax.

Their work is countered by a Dickensian ensemble of characters, many of whom are chronically sidetracked from the heroic community purpose by various amatory diversions. Given that the protesters include such locals as D.B. Cooper (the long-vanished airplane hijacker) and Sasquatch, in all his odoriferous glory, the reader is in for a rollicking but powerfully thought-provoking journey.

A lusty, environmental picaresque, McKenzie Rising satirizes our shortfalls, while celebrating our resilience and the triumph of community. The book offers a corrective to some of the amendable follies we lug with us as we careen into the (post)-Trump, (post)-COVID era.