Dead Souls: An American Poem

More than 170 years after Nikolai Gogol’s classic “Dead Souls,” Pavel Ivanovich Tchitchikov returns to capitalize on his political scam … in modern-day America.
With the purchase of voter registration lists and local newspaper obituaries, Tchitchikov has concocted a way to harvest the perfectly good votes of rather dead voters. With his compatriot and ride, Selifan, the two travel through Florida’s Congressional Districts to sell his seemingly lively congregation to power-hungry Congresspeople. But when they offer their dead voters to James Kingston, of the legendary Kingston political dynasty, Tchitchikov’s game is turned against him. Tchitchikov is blackmailed into digging up dirt on Kingston’s opponent, Representative Fairwell—a decent man in an indecent time. Tchitchikov must either betray the political revolution unfolding before him—and the new family he’s made with them—or lose everything.