Tall Tells...take on a new tone, targeted for a younger audience with much zeal and zannious from the guide, "Tall Tale", to the main character who travels through a tunnel on a ventrue to Tredegar Cove. Unpredictable and untelling, the plot places the reader in a place colored in orange but cloaked with darkness as bothe the guide, Tall, and the venturist, Sojourner the soul, testify and witness, knowledge and faith passed from the wiser to the learner.
Tredegar Cove couples both the "real world" and fantasy. Individuals and institutions are interchanged; for example, the local bank or banking is characterized by BOOZER, known to do his share of boozing, while the local government or law, HUSLEY HUSTLE--implying the law is a hustler. There is both a serious aspect and a satirical one, both a hardness and hilarity, for Sojourner to absorb in the school of life. As to good and evil, the separation is depicted by color; good as nesbitt orange and evil as gray, almost black.
Good things arrive from the beginning of "Tunnel Time" from Sojourner's passing to arrival in Tredegar Cove. While in route however, the young venturist is confronted by a series of objects and a character are too that magically appear, drawing to some degree on the past but also prescient of what to come.
More to come.
IN THE LESSENING is a dystopian novel, a time beyond, when much of the U.S. population is gone; those that remain divided between the METRO, a network of subterranean systems, and a relative few of hodgepodge villables called communities.
The story is influenced by classics first read in high school, 1984, Watership Down, Fahrenheit 451 and a host of films going back to the 1927 silent film, "Metropolis". Rather subdued compared with the violence of of some other stories, still, the plot picks-up with the understanding that the Metro is predatory and, at times, hunts down lone members of a community simply for sport.
Community is in every sense that; a developing collection of leftovers that somehow survived was is implied as a thermonuclear attack and, through strength beyond only one, came to be, resilient and steadfast. Communities have some form of interconnectivity that, unlike the "wired" Metro, relies on the ancient forms of communication and contact, couriers that run routes, delivering and receiving dispatches and such. As to the basics, each and all contribute and are encouraged to ply and develop trades, salvage and then create, supplying their needs one with another.
The plot picks-up with a Metro shuttle derailment and the rescue of one sole survivor of the system. How Community responds to this loner is quite remarkable given their plight, Metro's treatment of these defenseless souls; but then, that is what makes Community and true community--what is their body and blood, the secret of their survival in the lessening.
The second of my books, A Father and Future Felon, comes on the heels of A Once and Always Father. This second in the series picks-up post-divorce in 2008, when arrested for sending monies to my children, a graduation gift to my oldest then completing high school. The books is a tribute to fathers whether those that are in fact fathers as well as those that fill the spot in some meaningful way.
Going to jail for the second time, a second in the violation of an injunction, my desire to contact my children supersedes the statues of this order/injunction for more than one reason; that while knowing that "the law is the law", I also know that this law or order was predicated entirely on a lie--and nothing more. As Saint Augustine so aptly puts it, any law based on a lie is immoral.
Jail is a fascinating and fierce place; on the one hand--sometimes shackled--is the company of others reminiscent of my school days, both the good and the bad. On the other hand is the case that invariable ends with some kind of punishment given that defendants seldom receive a trial, but almost always, must confess their guilt--regardless of the evidence--per the plea bargain.
There is much more to add to this book, a summary; but for now, I will close with a simple confession: a system that first takes a parent's children by force--without just cause--is a tyrant; and a system that then imputes that now childless parent with the financial liability for children forcibly removed is a thief. Thus, the child enforcement system is both a tyrant and a thief.
More to come.
My third book, His Children are Far from Safety, is written/formatted as a play, script; the reason for this is that, with multiple voices are characters, the matter of who-is-who (or who is speaking) seems to be clearer.
Loosely based on the Book of Job, the book or play, begins with a single character, BO, who loses children among other things through divorce, a series of crisis or calamity. As with Job, BO transitions through the expected series of emotions and feelings, vacillating between depression and self-pity and entitlement, self-righteousness. Whereas Job sought an audience with God, BO seeks a day in court with the modern institutions behind much of the loss, the crisis.
As with Job, BO is confronted by counselors (those who serve as voices of reason against BO's supposed rights of restitution). These characters include: the soul (LOUS), the heart (TRA-EH), the mind (DN-IM), and the spirit (TI-RIPS); but other characters follow, among which, are the institutions that seemingly are in opposition to much of what BO stands for, seeks, and considers sacred.
The plot expands from the personal crisis to the broader issues of this time and place; a time when family is growing increasingly weaker along with marriage and fatherhood--all necessary institutions for a relatively free society.
Understanding the real enemy, they that plot and play to undermine the family and society at large, is key to realizing the madness behind the methods; and yes, BO begins to understand as the evidence mounts and true intentions are exposed.
