Lincoln Unified teacher’s new sci-fi novel features Stockton, punk rock and anti-racism

STOCKTON — Stockton native Ed Bonilla says anti-racism has been at the forefront of everything in his life. Thus, it comes as no surprise that his latest book would center around that same ideology.

“5 Clones,” which was officially released last month by the Bay Area-based publisher Montag Press, actually parallels many aspects of Bonilla’s life. The novel’s protagonist even grew up in Stockton.

“It was always the dream in my head that there’d be more literary stuff happening in Stockton, more arts,” said Bonilla, who also commissioned local artist Sean Gregory Miller to create his book’s cover art.

Bonilla describes the first installment of his planned three-part series as “future dystopian skinhead syfy” and personally gives it a PG rating.  

“It’s not that much violence or cursing in it,” Bonilla said, adding that it gives “hopefully a very positive message that great things are going to come out of Stockton.”

The plot of “5 Clones” takes place in a chaotic and fractured U.S., Bonilla said, where both California and Texas have seceded from the union after the country embraces nationalism and isolationist ideals. Now known as the Federal Union of States, the nation is governed by the “Red Hats,” racism runs rampant and borders are closed to all immigration.

Three stories are set against the backdrop of a future world plagued by regular natural disasters, including floods, fires and pandemic viruses, where clones have been created to help fill the labor gap left by the lack of migrant farmworkers, according to the novel’s website. The book’s main character, a former marijuana farmer named Dan, is making his way back to California from Colorado to sell his five clones. Along the way he also picks up a woman who is being hunted by an attack drone-wielding assassin.

Bonilla describes the novel’s clones as semi-sentient beings who can’t talk and sort of behave as “big Labrador retrievers.” 

“But one of them starts waking up in the middle night and telling (Dan) these crazy stories,” Bonilla said.

Eventually, all three narratives converge in a final battle that takes place at the Children’s Museum of Stockton. 

“5 Clones” isn’t the only book Bonilla has written that’s featured his hometown. The first — “Mr. Smith, can I go to the bathroom?” — was about a Stockton high school teacher like himself.

“Only he was crazy and I am … somewhat sane,” Bonilla said.

The 48-year-old Lincoln High School graduate says he has always loved Stockton, describing his childhood as “great” despite the city’s violent reputation. He also finds the area and its residents fascinating.

“People think Stockton is stupid and illiterate, you know, all these negative adjectives,” Bonilla said. “But there are very intelligent and literate people here. And I'm hoping to reach out to some of those people and to show kids, too, that it can be done.”

Bonilla earned an English degree from California State University, Sacramento in 1998, about eight years after first starting his collegiate journey at Brigham Young University in Utah. He then received his master’s degree in education from National University in Stockton.

“I've always wanted to be an English teacher since I was a sophomore in high school,” Bonilla said. “Just sit around and talk about books. That's what I love to do.”

He spent 12 years doing just that at Lincoln High before Bonilla said the school district’s superintendent asked him to head up a new second-chance program for expelled students called Civic Pride Independent Academy, a place he has spent the last decade of his career.

Bonilla is also a musician and grew up hanging out in the Stockton punk rock scene with anti-racist skinheads. He acknowledges some might view the notion as an “oxymoron” but said it’s actually a huge movement. Unfortunately, Bonilla says the excitement for punk rock in Stockton has dwindled.

“There used to be such a great punk scene here, which was what I was into when I was in high school,” Bonilla said. “There’s not that much of it anymore. There's no live music now.”

However, Bonilla still plays guitar and sings in several local bands, as well as produced Stockton’s Get Off the Couch punk-pop series for about five years. He and his band Radical Times also won fan favorite for their song “The Heart of Stockton” in the city’s Stocked Full of Music Song Contest in 2017.

Punk rock — and music in general — also plays a key role in “5 Clones.”

“The main character is a Mexican, anti-racist skinhead. And every time he comes up against the ‘Proud Boys’ or against the fascism, he really has to speak out and do something about it,” Bonilla said. “That’s how I've always lived my life.”

Radical Times even wrote a song for the book and shot the music video in Stockton, Bonilla said. Readers can also tune in to an accompanying Spotify playlist called “5 Clones” that features 20 songs favored by characters in the book.

“The protagonist, Dan, listens to California punk, so I’ve got all these local bands,” Bonilla said. “And then his wife is another character and she listens to ’80s new wave, so then there’s all this Morrissey and kind of that.”

Bonilla says it’s been tough promoting “5 Clones” during the COVID-19 pandemic. He had a lot of things planned, such as a release party with book-themed beer, signings and live shows. At present, he's relying mostly on social media.

“I thought my band would be playing and I’d be handing out stickers and doing reads and seeing people,” Bonilla said. “That’s the bummer that hasn’t come to pass.”

But Bonilla says the book has been well received thus far, such as positive reviews on Amazon. A standalone story told by one of the novel’s clones that serves as an entire chapter in the novel also won the Canadian Kelly J. Abbott Short Story Contest earlier this year.

Some readers have also called the novel prophetic, Bonilla said, mirroring issues and events currently happening across the country. But he stressed that “5 Clones” is not meant to be a politically charged novel.

“My whole goal was to write a story that people will enjoy, that you can sit down in a hammock or on the beach and it’s a page-turner,” Bonilla said. “I hope that’s what I’ve done.”

More information about “5 Clones” can be found at the book’s website at 5clones.com.

Contact reporter Cassie Dickman at (209) 546-8299 or cdickman@recordnet.com. Follow her on Twitter @byCassieDickman.