Karl Marx and the Lost California Manifesto Book Tour

Readers drawn to inventive literary fiction will find Karl Marx and the Lost California Manifesto by Scott D. Carlson both wildly imaginative and deeply human. Set during the California Gold Rush, it reimagines one of history’s most famous thinkers in a landscape of greed, chaos, and discovery.

Fleeing debtors’ prison in London, Karl Marx sets sail for California in 1849, hoping to strike gold for himself and for The Revolution. In San Francisco, he crosses paths with Sixto—a quick-witted teenager raised by padres in a mission and now on the run from a deranged shipwrecked sailor. The two unlikely companions set off into the Sierra Nevada, where their pursuit of fortune becomes a picaresque odyssey through the raw, dangerous heart of the American frontier. Hounded by bumbling Prussian agents intent on seizing Marx’s Manifesto, they navigate a world teeming with colorful figures: reckless Yankees, Miwok tribespeople, a runaway slave, the legendary bandit Joaquin Murrieta, and a mountain man who might be more philosopher than hermit. As Marx confronts the greed and contradictions of gold fever, his revolutionary ideals are tested, reshaped, and—perhaps—redeemed, while Sixto, our endearing narrator, discovers the first glimmers of belonging in a turbulent world.

Scott D. Carlson writes with wit, irony, and a keen sense of humanity born from a life rich in varied experience. He has worked as a taxi driver, short-order cook, hospital orderly, lawyer, teacher, and Army cook—roles that gave him a storyteller’s empathy and humor. Now living in the Bay Area, Carlson draws inspiration from California’s contradictions: its ambition, idealism, and history of reinvention. A graduate of New York University with an MA in Creative Writing, he brings literary craft and irreverent insight to his debut novel. Learn more on his website.

 

 

Amazon: https://bit.ly/4nWC6nK

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242443484-karl-marx-and-the-lost-california-manifesto

 

Author Interview

 

How did you research your book?

I’m lucky to have a good public library, and access to a university library, that both have a lot of books containing first-hand accounts by “49ers,” of their experiences coming to California and what it was like in the mountains. A lot of these books are online, via the Internet Archive or Project Gutenberg, which are great resources.

 

What’s the hardest scene or character you wrote—and why?

I think the “action” scenes in the book are difficult. For example, the duel, and later Sixto and Marx roping the Prussians. I want readers to be able to “see” these clearly in their imaginations, so you have to be pretty detailed about who does what in space, and when and how, etc.

 

Where do you get your ideas?

The idea for this book came from reading a biography of Marx. In 1850, he and Friedrich Engels both seriously considered coming to America, but were so broke they couldn’t afford the boat fare. I had to wonder: What if he had come?  Reading about gold miners’ lives also gave me more ideas than I could handle.

 

What helps you overcome writer’s block?

Ego. Seriously, the writer Flannery O’Connor said something like “Just get behind your machine!” And another writer, E.L. Doctorow, who I studied with, said that he was sitting at his desk staring at a wall, started writing about the wall, and it turned into his novel Ragtime.

 

Where do you write—home, coffee shop, train?

I can’t write anywhere but home, and when I’m there, not anywhere but in the little world of my “office.” With the two doors closed. I can stare out the window there, at a bunch of oak trees.

 

 

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