Richard Melo is an author and book reviewer. He is the author of the novels Happy Talk and Jokerman 8.
"""My first thought when I started reading Jokerman 8 was, 'Damn it, why didn't I write this book?' Then I set to work trying to figure out how to plagiarize it. Finally, I had sit back & give in to its crazy brilliance - which is all its own and unstealable. Written with love for all of us babies blinking in the silent home movies of the 60s and 70s, Jokerman 8 reminds us of who we were meant to be and how we intended to live in this wack-ass world."" - Ariel Gore, author of Atlas of the Human Heart ""Like the Dylan songbook its title invokes, Jokerman 8 is freewheeling and deeply felt, moving and cymbal-crashing funny. It is also that rarity: an angry, politically-minded work of exuberant high spirits. A great first novel."" - Andrew Lewis Conn, author of P: The Novel"""