Work, With Occasional Molemen

Mel Kincaid’s an ordi­nary guy, unluck­ily born into an extra­or­di­nary fam­ily of low-​​class crim­i­nals and thieves. The family’s patri­arch, known only as the Old Man, rules his fam­ily as dic­ta­tor. Everyone pays a cut of their checks to the fam­ily, or the Old Man sends Aunt Livia’s boys to collect.

Mel pulls late shifts for the tire plant, but the rumor around Topeka is that the com­pany is mov­ing the plant. Mel and his saucer-​​crazed cousin Chet work odd jobs, hop­ing to stay afloat and keep the Old Man off their backs. It’s not a great life, but it’s his, mostly free and clear.

That is, until a chance encounter with a mole man derails Mel’s mostly sta­ble life and send­s him into direct con­flict with the Old Man. Along the way, Mel ducks his blood thirsty cousins, attempts to pawn jew­els dug up from the cen­ter of the earth, and strug­gles to learn why the enig­matic mole men have sud­denly taken such an inter­est in him.

A darkly satir­i­cal story by sci­ence fic­tion and fan­tasy author Jeremiah Tolbert, “Work” blends the hard truths of a work­ing class life with the fan­tas­ti­cal of 1950s scifi movies.