Satire at its best!In this indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time, two young people, Beckman and Malany set out on an odyssey to find meaning and reality in the artistic life, and in doing so unleash a barrage of humorous, unintended consequences.Beckman and Malany's journey reflects the allegorical evolution of humanity from its primal state, represented by Beckman's dismal life as a dishwasher to the crude, medieval development of manking in a pool hall, and then to the false but erudite veneer of sophistication of the academic world.The world these protagonists life in is a world without love. It has every other variety of drive and emotion, but not love. Do they know it? Not yet. And they won't until they figure out why no birds sing here.Meier's writing is precise and detailed, whether the situation he describes is clear or ambiguous.Fans of Franzen and Salinger will find Meier to be another sharp, provocative writer of our time.

Volume 2 in The Dung Beetles of Liberia series.In April of 1979, Ken Verrier and his wife, Sam, return to Liberia to buy diamonds. They did not return to get caught up in a rice riot and a coup de'etat. But that's what happens. Ken witnesses and unwittingly participates in a period of Liberia's tumultuous yet poorly documented history—-the overthrow of the Tolbert presidency and ultimately the end of the Americo-Liberian one hundred thirty-three years of political and social dominance.Details of President Tolbert's assassination are sketchy, but through Ken's association with his Americo friends from the past, the CIA agents he meets, and the Liberian military he is forced to deal with, a believable scenario emerges.While describing the once beautiful country and a kind and generous people, Meier intertwines terrifying tales of the atrocities committed that account for the future pain of an entire nation.