American Bastards is not an acid novel, although some characters do occasionally take acid. It is not a fairy tale, despite taking place in a Wonderland inside a Classic Rock station. It is not science fiction, though it wishes it was. It does, however, feature a panel of dead rock stars trying to save the world, a booze hound Tom Sawyer, a hitchhiking Uncle Sam heading to Hollywood with stars in his eyes, a love story with a prostitute, fortune tellers, gypsy-punk circus performers, visions of New York City invaded by the restless dead, and a war between Art and Business. It is the story of Jack Bluff, and an entire generation, challenging more than authority, but the nature of their existence. Rising up not in protest marches, but in creativity, they all feel what Jack absolutely knows: that we are the bastard children of the American Dream, because it, like so many dead-beat dads, abandoned us at birth.