Working on it...

First British notes back on The Alice '65 and a lot to go through. Nothing major, it seems, just details mixed in with the bits and pieces of the story. I'll have to read through it to find them all, however, because he input them into a Word copy, in red. Like hide and seek.

One embarrassing bit is someone pointing out my misspelling of dummkopf. If I'm going to use words from a foreign language, I should verify they're correctly spelled. That's another step in the process, now.

Something that's interesting is when a correction is suggested because the reader misunderstood what I was getting at. That means I need to find a better way to lay it out so it's not confusing. Clarity is the essence of condescending obnoxiousness...but sometimes it's what is needed in an off-beat story like A65.

I had another reader so identify with Adam, she never was able to see the humor of what was happening. Maybe I should stop calling this a romantic comedy and just a romance...of a sort. It doesn't really fall under those parameters. Romantic farce, maybe? Dramatic farce? Hell, I don't know; I just hope it's readable and sells well.

Tomorrow I'm off to San Francisco for a couple days and then Miami and New York City. A whirlwind 8 days of book fair move ins and map fair move outs and collections of archives and all that jazz. So I'll read the notes on the plane. I'm too backed up from work to do anything more. I was there till after 7 getting things settled before I go.

Now my brain is drained and ready for bed...

That was quick...

I sent in an application to be allowed to apply for a Library of Congress number, yesterday, and I already got the OK! Didn't expect it for a week. So I sent one in on behalf of The Alice '65. And got a notice back they had "The alive '65" under review. I nearly fell over. I checked every part of that application before I hit send, and I'd have sworn I had everything correct. But I can't find out till they issue the number; then I supposedly can make changes.

I'm finding my typing and ability to catch my errors is getting worse. Like I have minimal control over my fingers and my brain doesn't connect with my eyes, sometimes. I like to blame some of it on this laptop's slim keyboard, and that is part of the issue...but I do still have some of the same trouble on a regular keyboard, at work. I have to proof my emails three times to make sure they're right, and sometimes I still miss things.

I had myself checked for Alzheimer's and dementia, since those run in my family. But I didn't score anywhere near what they say indicates either illness. I also asked about dyslexia becoming more pronounced as you age, but the doctor shrugged that off with, "You either are or aren't, and since you've never been diagnosed with it..."

I dunno...maybe I just need to stop pushing so hard and kick back a little. Maybe I'm just more hyper-critical of my work so more aware of the errors I'm making. This is why I now use editors for my work; they can catch most of my fuck-ups...but then again, they don't catch all of them.

Just glancing over A65 to add in a change I wanted to make about Adam's stylish redo, I found a couple of inconsistencies -- noting he's not supposed to have a belt, for example, then a paragraph later, he's slipping a belt on. It was like that two drafts ago.

Oopsie...

I should have reposted this, yesterday...

This is from when I was in Munich and went to Dachau, on July 25th, 2013 in the middle of a vicious heat wave. I'm reposting in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day.
-----------------
So…yesterday I went to Dachau Concentration Camp. It’s only about 20 minutes northwest of Munich, on the S-Bahn #2. Then you hop the 726 bus to pass through a pleasant little town and around to the main entrance.  It’s not a very large bus and has no AC or even decent air flow, and mine was crammed with American students chattering about where they’ve been, so far, and how awful or lax airport security is, and yap, yap, yap. Irritating…but it’s Europe in the summer.

Right by the entrance is the well-kept information center and cafeteria, then comes a short stroll down a gravel pathway of lovely foliage and neat benches, all very innocuous...until you get to...

...a couple of rails left from where the trains used to stop. Then across a little creek is a plain-looking building with a simple iron gate. Beyond that is a massive parade ground. Acres of smooth, white gravel, with tiny buildings to the left and the museum to the right.

In front of this building is a wrought-iron sculpture symbolizing the pain and suffering of what happened at this camp.

I entered the museum first, winding my way down polished floors and clean white walls and perfectly laminated posters with well-crafted explanations of the events from 1933-1945. Some of the photos are very intense, and a sign at the main entrance even suggests the museum is not appropriate for children under 12. People were mostly quiet and reading and thinking, some chattering to each other, some being led by tour guides...like this was the latest collection at a gallery.

It used to be the processing center, where prisoners were stripped and forced to take showers, then were shaved of their hair…each step done in the most humiliating manner possible.

When you exit the building, to the right are guard towers and trenches and electrified fences.

Across the wide expanse of blinding white gravel are two barracks that neatly show the living conditions...

...and beyond those are line after line of gravel rectangles elegantly symbolizing the 72 other barracks that made up this part of the camp…each precisely numbered.

There’s a beautiful promenade between tall, whispering trees that leads to a Christian memorial to the dead; the Jewish one is smaller and to the right of it. To its left is a building that deals with racism of all kinds.

People stroll about and chatter and talk on their phones and German students sound just like American students, except for the actual words, and I heard this Daft Punk song I loathe blasting off someone’s iPod and dogs are led about on leads, sniffing and pissing as their owners complain about god knows what and it’s all so wrong, wrong, wrong.

You don’t smell anything there. All you hear is nonsense and the noise of idiots. The gravel is kept perfectly in place. The floors are so clean you can eat off them. The walls are painted white or are polished wood. Behind the Christian memorial is a Carmelite convent established on what was a playground built by slave labor for the camp commandant’s children. It all looks really, really nice, but it’s all so antiseptic and clean, it’s not real, anymore. It’s just a thought.

What clarified everything was when I was walking down the promenade towards the memorial and a woman passed me with her happy, sniffing dog as she chatted to a friend. I actually got so fucking angry when I saw that fucking dog and that stupid fucking woman chattering in what I think was German, I had to walk away from her. All of a sudden I was weeping…not crying, just tears streaming down my face at the blithe disregard for how vile and animalistic humanity has been and can still be. Granted, hers wasn’t the only dog there, but it drove the point home.

This was a park, now. A playground for puppies to play and piss and poop, and for people to stroll around on a warm summer day. The exquisite symmetry of it all has minimized the hell this place became for god knows how many men, women and children. It’s all just history, now. All just a memory...if even that.

Humans have been practicing genocide since we began developing separate civilizations. “Mine is always better while yours is unworthy.” Even the US was built on genocide and slavery, and around the world hate and fear are, as usual, being used to solidify political power in Russia and Afghanistan and countries in Africa...hell, it’s still happening in America.

We always do everything we can to minimize the true atrocities that can be unleashed by human beings – not just at Dachau, but against Armenians in Turkey, and Kurds in Iraq, and Native Americans in the US and on and on and on. It’s always "them" being the worst and only barely ever "us" when it comes to the horror that's part of nature; not human nature, just nature in general.

The planet don't give a damn about our ideas of morality, one way or the other. It does what it does. We, as humans, claim we want to rise above that…but we always drop back to the slime pits the second we have the excuse.

Because we never remember; we deliberately forget. And clean, beautiful, antiseptic memorials like Dachau will always be there to help us do exactly that.
---------
It's nearly 5 years later, and the world is racing to another catastrophe, just like this one...and that motherfucking son-of-a-bitch in the White house is leading the charge.

God damn him and every one of his cult-like followers.

Getting it right...

Interesting...but when I finally got my cover down, the book began to seem like it's going to get done. I'm still waiting for feedback on the archival and British aspects of the story -- I've gently asked if that would be coming anytime soon and only been told by one she's having fun working on it -- but the jacket and synopsis are set.

It's amazing how the slightest shift in position can make or break the artwork for a cover. I think I shifted Adam's position a half-dozen times before it was right. Same for the title. I lowered my name a bit, along with Gertrude, the book and Casey, and that extra bit of space seems to make it real, for me.

I've also contacted the Library of Congress about getting an LoC designation for the copyright page. That's needed for libraries to know who to categorize the book, but I have to ask permission to ask for it, first. So I did. Supposedly, I'll get the answer in a few days.

There's also the synopsis, which will be on the front flyleaf of the cover. I've redone it and polished it and adjusted it so much, I may have edged all the life out of it. If anyone wants to comment, I'm open to suggestions --

One of the rarest books in existence is the 1865 printing of Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Sir John Tenniel, the illustrator, so disliked how they turned out they were recalled to be replaced by a new printing. All but around 50 were returned and destroyed, and of those...fewer than half survive.

Adam Verlain knows all about this; he’s a library archivist for a university in London, and books are his life. But when that library acquires a newly discovered copy of The Alice ‘65, he declines the opportunity to travel to Los Angeles to pick it up. He has sworn never to leave his careful, cloistered world because his father was robbed and killed on a similar trip. He only agrees to go when he is told the book will be brought to him at the airport, meaning he will be surrounded by security.

However, from the moment he boards the plane, things start to go wrong. Then he meets the amazingly beautiful, amazingly persuasive Casey Blanchard, a movie star who inherited The Alice '65, and the worst happens -- she will not let him have the book unless he accompanies her to a premier of her latest film for reasons that...well, seem quite odd.

The university wants that book, so Adam is forced to go along...sending him careening into a chaotic world of too-cool artists, drill-sergeant stylists, mistaken identity, hysterical fans, Hollywood royalty, their courtiers and minions, maniacal LA drivers, an outlandish party, a drowning pool, a love-struck wild animal on a homemade veldt, 25 cans of salmon...and the horrible realization he’s fallen head-over-heels in love with a woman every man in the world desires, but who he knows could never love him back.

Or could she?

A bit of A65...

This is when Adam's trying to sneak back into Lando's party, after having been kicked out --

---

Adam grimaced and berated himself for not being more like James Bond than Tarzan. That beam of light danced through the leaves, again. He crouched in a shadow and meowed like a cat.

Sort of.

The guard chuckled and said, "Hey, kitty cat, you don't wanna be near that yard, trust me."

Which caused Adam to meow a question mark. What could the man mean? He looked around at the big, beautiful pool that was too close for comfort, and the thickness of bushes around the rocks, and the massive trees in their center, their branches trimmed away from the fencing, and the arced wire along the rooftop and — wait, even on top of the house there was a fence? What — did the paparazzi climb onto his roof and rappel down to the ground to take photos in a bedroom window? Like where two people were, right now?

Two people named Casey and Lando.

Holding each other and kissing.

Very intense kissing.

Hands everywhere kissing!

She wasn't in trouble; she was back in Lando's arms!

"Bloody hell," popped out before Adam could even think to censor it.

He heard the guard cry, "Okay, that wasn't no cat. Tito, we got an intruder in the back yard."

Then he heard Tito's voice laugh on a walkie-talkie as he said, "Don't worry, he'll come out soon as he meets Gertrude."

Gertrude?

"Don't we want him alive?" the guard asked.

Alive? What the devil were they talking about?

Then he heard something growling. A deep rumbling growling. Stronger than any dog or cat he'd ever known. More like a motorcycle revving. He looked around. Searched the bushes. Searched the yard. Searched the trees and found nothing —

Except a pair of cool, yellow eyes in the shadows of the trees. He looked harder and finally saw the form of a big, beautiful black panther lounging on a branch. Watching him. Curious. Almost sad.

Until it hissed and howled at him!

He jolted back against the fence and that damned wire jabbed him in the rear. He jumped forward, crying, "SCHEISSE. Nein! Nein!" Grabbed at the tree but lost his grip and fell onto a branch that bounced him onto a diving board that bounced him off into the deep end of the massive pool.

Where he promptly sank.

He thrashed and swallowed water and choked and was barely able to kick himself back to the surface to cry, "Help!" before he sank, again, and had to fight his way back up to the surface to choke out a more feeble "Help..."

He heard Casey's voice cry, "Adam?" then sank, again and —

Something bumped against him and grabbed him by the collar to drag him into the shallow end so he could stand and cough and wipe water off his face, as best he could.

"Adam? Adam, are you all right?" It was Casey's voice.

His eyes burned like fire and he was retching, but he was finally able to look around and see her at the edge of the pool, watching him, fear in her eyes.

Lando sat in a window, drink in hand, chuckling, "See? All he had to do was stand up."

"He was in the deep end, idiot," Casey snapped. "Gertrude pulled him over."

"From the shallow end."

Veronica joined Lando, saying, "What's Gertrude up to?"

“She went fishin'," said Lando. “Caught a minnow.”

A sudden rain cascaded onto Adam. He looked around to find the panther shaking the water off herself. She then stretched out on the grass near the pool to watch him. Beyond her, he saw the partygoers had noticed the commotion in the back yard and were pressed against the windows, fascinated, masks still on.

"Gertrude, have you been a good little guard cat?" Veronica asked, slipping an arm around Lando.

"She earned her Kibble, tonight," he responded.

Adam realized his trousers were around his hips, his shirt clung to him and he was missing a boot. And a sock. He wiped his face with the glittery briefs to clear away the last of the water.

That's when he heard Veronica say, "Oh, cute, his hankie got sparkles."

"They're — briefs," Adam choked out.

Lando burst into laughter. "Damn, Case, you got him out of his pants, already? I had more control, than that."

To which Veronica said, "You better or it's off with your head."

Adam looked around, asking, "Where are my glasses?" In German. He found half the frame caught in his trousers, snapped at the nose. He put it on and saw the panther, whom he supposed was named Gertrude, playing with the other half and, "Oh, this isn’t good," burst from him. In German.

Gertrude looked at him and gave a soft purr.

Casey walked over to the steps from the pool, saying, "Adam, come on out; she won't hurt you."

"Naw, better not, Andrew," Lando laughed. "Gertrude don't like gay undies."

Adam headed for some steps built into one end of the pond, finally beyond caring, so snapped back at him, "Tell me, Lando, were you born to be such an ass? Or is it just because your Mum and Da named you after a secondary character in a derivative science fiction film?"

Lando climbed out through the window, snarling, "Hey, book-boy, Lando Calrissian was the coolest guy in the whole series."

"Who doesn't appear until chapter five," Adam snarled back. "Hardly in the same caliber as Luke or Han."

"It's not how much you do; it's what you do with it."

"Spoken like a man who knows the true limits of his capacities."

"Yeah, come on out of my pool. Maybe I'll tell Gertrude your ass is steak."

Adam hesitated. He had just noticed Gertrude was pacing him, her eyes locked on him, the other half of his glasses over her nose. But then he remembered it was this panther who had saved him so continued on to the steps, one hand gripping his trousers so they would remain around his waist and not his ankles.

"Lando, send her away,” Casey snapped. “Adam, are you all right?"

"Brilliant," Adam said. "But I seriously doubt Orisi will want his outfit back."

Lando laughed. "Those're his briefs? Dude, for that, you get my sympathy."

That's when Tito appeared at Lando's side, saying, "Want me to call the cops?"

"Naw, I'm gonna have Gertrude chase him around. She needs the exercise." Then he broke into a sing-song as he said, "Gertrude, jag de fleiss."

The panther let out a soft growl.

"Do you know how to run, Andrew?" Veronica asked, happy as a lark.

"My name is ADAM," he snarled.

Casey was almost beside herself. "Oh, for god's sake — Gertrude. House. HOUSE."

The panther looked at her but did nothing.

Lando did his sing-song, again, as he called, "Gertrude, hou de vater."

This was too much for Adam to bear. "It's wasser, dumpkoff, and you’re making no bloody sense!"

Then he saw Gertrude slide into the pool with a happy little growl. He bolted up the steps, startled. Barely able to keep his pants up. The cut over his eye was bleeding, again. That is when he saw one of his boots at the bottom of the deep end, his sock next to it. Now he understood the need for a pedicure; one never knew when one's toes might be exposed.

Casey brought a towel over to him, asking, "What're you doing out here? Nobody comes in the back yard."

He pushed the towel away. He could not look at her. "You knew about Gertrude," he said, his voice cracking. Barely able to control his shaking.

"He's had her for a couple years. Why didn't you just wait in the limo?"

"Like a good dog?" he snapped. "I — I thought I forgot something. My mistake."

He pushed away from her. His head pounded. The bottom of his stomach churned. He limped thanks to the boot still on his foot. First he picked up the mangled half of his glasses to put on with the other lens — which made him look very cock-eyed — then he stormed for the house. Tito stood between him and it and Adam was contemplating the best tackle to use on the lumbering ox when he realized, "Oh, no mistake," spun around and headed for the wall.

"What did you forget?" Veronica called.

"His brain," said Lando, "just like that tin-man guy."

Adam shook his head in awe. "Oh, Lando, you should never try to speak without a script. You only reveal your inadequate knowledge of English literature, let alone her language." Then he climbed the tree to retrieve the coat. When he hopped back down, he saw Gertrude watching from the pool.

"Wow," said Lando. "Who knew you could climb so good? Beef up a little, add six inches to your height, I could use you as a double."

Adam headed back to the house, saying, "Thanks, but I’ve no wish to play the ass, in your stead."

Lando blinked and said, "What’d you just say?"

Veronica chimed in with, "Huh?"

Adam cast a harsh laugh. "Oh, dear God, a bite of cabbage has more intelligence than the two of you, combined!"

Tito was about to jump Adam, but got a glare of fury and a hurling snarl of, "Step away from the madman!"

He stepped.

Adam limped inside, slammed past the partygoers and, in a fit of fury, ripped the boot off his foot and slung it aside. Then he grabbed a stick of burning incense from the Earth mother. "You're right,” he snarled, “I need cleansing."

Then he bolted out the front door.

Time to think and contemplate...

Without rereading the story, I'm coming up with little moments I missed in my writing of The Alice '65. Little ways of enriching and expanding on the characters without much in the way of addition. For example, Adam learns his associate, Elizabeth, has never read any of Henry James' novels even though her specialization is 19th and 20th century literature. She becomes quite defensive about it...but then near the end of the story, Adam points out to her that reading some of his books could have prevented her from getting into a situation that will hurt her.

That's one of several subtexts running through the story -- that reading can prepare you for the world. Of course, Adam is a voracious reader but he still hides himself away until dragged from the safety of his self-made cocoon and confronts life in all its messiness. Yet he also embodies his father's attitude -- that because he reads, he's a better person and more open to different experiences than one who's closed himself off from anything deemed unimportant.

Reading kept me alive and going, for years. My mother was the type who'd give you all sorts of toys at Christmas but if you wanted a paperback murder mystery, it was, "See if they have it at the library." At least she made sure I had a library card, and I used it. Read everything I could, from Earl Stanley Gardner to Agatha Christie to Ellery Queen to Grace Metalious to Jacqueline Susann to Isaac Asimov to Arthur C. Clark to Clifford D. Simak to...well, you get the picture.

I didn't get into the classics until I was out of college, which was both the right way to go and the wrong way. I couldn't stand Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye and felt Dickens was just too melodramatic and episodic, but I loved the Russian writers and French and Japanese and South American...and even Henry James. I finally understood that certain books are best read at certain times in one's development, and if you come to them at the wrong point in your life, they will not share themselves with you.

I just hope A65 winds up being a book for all ages, not one for a specific time and place.

Once upon a time busses ran on a schedule...

I thought I'd be cheap and ride the bus to work, this morning. One's due at the stop in front of my building at 8:25am and it would get me to where I needed in time to be there a bit early. So I go out to the bus stop, where a couple other people are waiting...and nothing. Nothing. Finally, 10 minutes after the bus was due a passenger called to find out when it would come and was told it had passed, already. At 8:27. A lie. A flat out lie.He told the person on the phone so, and the only answer he got was, "Next one's due at 8:55."

I called Lyft. Cost me $12 but I made it to work on time, and that was with a guy who was driving very, very carefully. Then, this evening, I decided to see how long it would take me to walk back to my place. According to Google Maps I live 3.8 miles from where I work, and it should take me 1 hour and 21 minutes to walk. So I set off, even though I knew a bus was due at the stop I needed at around 5:35, according to the bus company.

It was 8 minutes early. I watched it drive by and checked my watch. Couldn't believe it. Either the schedule was changed and no one at the bus company was told, or the drivers just do their own thing, up and down and back and forth. Can't trust a company that lets that happen.

I'm not a speed walker, but neither am I slow, still it took me just over an hour and a half to do...which I guess isn't that far off the mark. Of course, it was cold and windy, but I had gloves, a hood and an umbrella to use as a walking stick. It worked out okay.

I even had dinner, en route, at a Boston Market (and deducted the time I spent eating from the tally). Their food's on the bland side, but they had BBQ sauce; slathering that over roast turkey actually worked out good. The meal is still a bit overpriced, but I was hungry and it filled me. And now I'm ready to soak in a tub for a while and read Adrian McKinty's Falling Glass, one of his Northern Irish crime novels.

Tomorrow my car should be ready, so I'll be out late, again. I'll be using Lyft to get there...and I think I'll use it to get to work, too. It's cheaper than renting a car, by 3/4, and works better than Uber.

Now tired be I...

Lovely day...

Worked non-stop getting ready for next week's book fairs, then on the way home my car started rumbling, loud. Muffler trouble. So I took it to the dealership I use and they said I needed to replace a pipe that had been rusted through, in spots. Apparently it's an original pipe...they let me go under the car to see it. But it's costing $850 bucks...and I've already learned the hard way that to go to a muffler shop means I may spend less now but will have trouble, again, next year.

They didn't have the parts, yet, so I set up a time to bring the car back...then as I was driving home the fucking muffler fell apart and was dragging on the pavement. I made it into a Ted's Hot Dogs and called AAA and had the car towed back to the dealership, then had dinner and walked home. It was only a few miles and not all that cold...and I saved myself about $15 over calling a cab or Uber. Tomorrow, I'm on the bus to work, and same for home. And I'm not loving this, at all.

It seems as soon as I start to gain some traction in handling my debt, something happens to kick me right back to where I started.  Rent goes up. Insurance goes up. Phone and internet go up. Cost of food goes up. Salary stays the same. It's infuriating.

What added to my irritation was, my phone was close to going dead and I had no way to plug it in, anywhere. I had my laptop with me, but it won't let me attach the phone without a special cable, and I'd left that at home. Nor would my battery extender work with the phone. The one time I figure I don't need anything extra in my backpack is the one time I needed everything.

The only good thing was, I got some work done on A65, while waiting. I polished up the synopsis and changed some of the interaction between Adam and Elizabeth at the end...and now I'm wondering if the ending works as it currently stands. If it isn't just a bit too pat. Too simple. Something in me is saying I should end it at another point and I'm unable to find an honest reason not to.

Guess I'll ask for some feedback about that...

Ideas keep coming for A65...

I know the book will never be completed in my head, but while The Alice '65 is still working it, I'm open to any additions till I finalize the pages and send them off to Ingram Spark. Tonight I realized I was missing an interesting back and forth between Adam and Elizabeth near the end, that shades her character more and give him a finer dusting of adult humanity.

She calls him a Hobbit, thanks to Jeremy repeating a comment she made some time ago. Only Adam's brother, Connor, calls him that. I had no idea Elizabeth was trying to let me know something about her and her ways. Adam needs to let her know he knows...and warn her against Connor. Just to show he's over her. One of those things that you never see until you do, and then you wonder why you never did.

I now see Daniel Radcliffe as Adam. Right age. Right intellectual scruffiness. But good-looking enough to believe as both a nerd and a romantic lead.

I'm so intensely shallow about such things. I'm always using actors as my visuals, and those do change, especially once the character starts talking to me. Then he settles his own appearance for me.

I liked using Russell Tovey when I first started writing the story; he has an off-beat attractiveness and the camera loves him. I also liked Matthew Lewis as an alternative, but once Adam took command, neither of them would work, in my head.

I do still see Eliza Dushku as Casey, even though she's now too old for the part; Casey's around 30 while Eliza's closing in on forty. When she was in Dollhouse, she was exactly right. As for Lando, it was Chris Hemsworth just because it's so obvious.

Like I said, I'm shallow...

Low key day...

Didn't feel so hot so spent the day piddling and reading. I was trying really hard to get into A Confederacy of Dunce by John Kennedy Toole, but I finally gave up. It's not often I can't become part of a book's world, but this one drove me insane. Ignatius Reilly is a character I despise because he's nothing but a characature of a man. Not real or human. I made it to page 89 before his comments about his valve being an issue and his laziness and selfishness and childishness and on and on and on drove me to the brink.

I can only think of two other books that pushed me away like this -- Continental Drift by Russell Banks and Light in August by William Faulkner. I'd never read anything else by Banks, and that book made me never want to, it was so relentlessly down-beat and programmed for what I knew would be a tragic ending. I gave up at page 100.

With Faulkner, I'd been okay with The Hamlet and actually liked The Sound and the Fury -- I was taking a college course in him, for English credit -- but when I started in on Light in August...it may sound weird, but I don't think the book wanted me to read it. It refused to let me in, and truth is, I wasn't all that interested in pushing it. Unfortunately, the class was being taught by a Faulkner aficionado and he did not take kindly to my comments about the book...so I dropped the class.

Oh...and Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. Jesus, God, this was anything but the life-affirming auto-biography I'd been told it was. Three children are dead by page 50, thanks to a childish, selfish man's alcoholism and laziness. I actually asked someone who had read it if things get better, and she said, "No." Since I wanted to slit my wrists by page 60, I chose the better option of not continuing the book.

I did make some similar mistakes in tone with Bobby Carapisi -- focusing on Eric's slide into depression and prostitution after he's raped by three men, counterpointed with Bobby's struggle to regain his balance after the same men attack him in the first 2/3 of the book. The last third focuses on Eric trying to get Alan, one of the rapists, to admit what he and his buddies did to Bobby by letting him tell his side, much of which is told like pornography and is revealed to be a lie...but which does lead him to finally take responsibility for his actions while Eric regains his sense of compassion and humanity enough to pen up to a future of possibilities.

Of course, these could be merely my justifications for a book that is as brutal and downbeat as the ones I didn't like. Maybe that's why I did The Lyons' Den next. Its chaotic farce mitigates the deep horror of Daniel's past with a present that is ludicrous in the extreme. And The Vanishing of Owen Taylor has Jake snarling and snapping his way through the book like a pissed off Jack Russell terrier, but has a fair amount of humor and love and even moments of tenderness and quiet. And now comes The Alice '65, more chaos, drama, farce and...I hope...hope.

Next comes the trick of Place of Safety...taking a horror of a time and not letting it obscure the humanity of people or their hope and insistence that life be lived on their own terms and no one else's. Brendan is my proto-Candide...journeying through the world with little more than hope and determination to keep him going. Even in the face of people's hate and stupidity. And make it...hopeful...maybe.

Who knows -- one of these days I may actually turn into a real writer.