G. Douglas Davis IV pens new book, “The Tragic Life of Joe Tomatohead, PhD”

Hello Capital Region! I hope you all are well. I have a new book recommendation for your bookshelves; written by local author, D. Alexander Holiday. The D. stands for Douglas. I was alerted on a very popular social media platform where we are friends that he had authored a new book. His seventh book is entitled The Tragic Life of Joe Tomatohead, PhD using his nom de plume, G. Douglas Davis IV. The title piqued my interest. So we are friends, authors and share a publisher, The Troy Book Makers. I used Messenger to send him a note and asked if he would be interested in being interviewed. He said yes. I high-fived the air. The first contact was made via phone. I mean an actual phone call. We chatted for over an hour and plans were made to interview outside as soon as possible. Well, between life’s weekly challenges and Mother Nature gracing us with menopausal weather; we rescheduled to this past week. As they say across the pond, this was a banger! 

He thankfully has been remaining safe and creative during our months of the pandemic and is very proud of his latest work. He has been fortified during his life to use his gift of writing by reading books and poems from the following authors: Beloved by Toni Morrison, Native Son by Richard Wright, Sapphire, Audre Lorde, Countee Cullen. Doug has a mile long list of authors that he admires and adores. The aforementioned sprang to the forefront during our conversation. 

We were sitting outside in Washington Park near the Moses fountain for our interview. He appears with a Black Authors Matter baseball cap, a red t-shirt emblazoned with Good Trouble, a quote by John Lewis and brown pants. Doug is an intelligent and humorous individual. His low key demeanor is masking high and low brow insights with an overt or wry comedic point of view. He was born with survival DNA in Queens, New York. Doug was the fifth child of nine and was placed in the New York City foster care system. He overcame his abandonment issues, racial inequities, hospitalization and mis-diagnoses, rehabilitation, loneliness, suicide attempts and decided to thrive. Doug chose education and fought to earn his bachelor’s and master’s degrees; which commenced in New York City and achieved in Albany, New York. 

The Tragic Life of Joe Tomatohead, PhD is the third installment in his series of being bullied in the workplace. Doug was employed at two different New York State agencies. He is now retired. It is a work of non-fiction and between those gorgeous covers is a hybrid of prose and poetry. I know what you’re thinking, three books on bullying by grown adults at the workplace. Is that for real? It is real a-f! Although most books about bullying focus on children, adult bullying is its own category of mayhem. Doug was a state worker for over fifteen years; so three books seems kind of light. These myriad of incidents were rooted in racism, sexism and ableism perpetrated and perpetuated by his supervisors and colleagues that threatened his will and sanity. While his book focuses on the negatives that human beings can unleash, there are a handful of people who were kind and humble, at his former places of employment. Those people made the hours bearable and they remain dear, positive influences and remembrances.

The Tragic Life of Joe Tomatohead, PhD is the saga of Doug’s final years of mistreatment under conditions that would make Upton Sinclair pause. Instead of silence, violence or pugilism, he used his keyboard as the sword of justice and his books are the stones for Doug against Goliath. He started the trilogy with E-mails From Satan’s Daughter and Kith & Kin: A Klannish, Klownish, Tragik Komedy. As the titles indicate, Doug does not mince words. He provides names, emails and specific situations that he was made to navigate to earn a paycheck. The names have been changed or redacted to protect the guilty. He toiled and deflected, but finally decided to fortify himself by writing about the deluge of microaggressions, pejoratives, overt encounters and psychological warfare that was his workplace gauntlet. The Tragic Life of Joe Tomatohead, PhD and his other works are available to purchase online via Amazon.com. The Tragic Life of Joe Tomatohead, PhD is also available for purchase in person at The Book House in Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, and Market Block Books, Troy.

Thanks again Doug for the chat and the chuckles. I’m going to grab his book and my pillow and start reading.