My Novel

Exciting News! My novel is out and can be ordered on Amazon.com Check it out, and if you order it, I hope you like it and then pass it on to a friend. I am donating all the author proceeds from this novel to "Second Harvest," an organization to feed the hungry in America. My two year project and adventure is complete, and I am now half way through my next novel which takes place in New York City. It will be some time before I see this next one in print. In the meantime, I enjoy the writing of it which is the fun part for me! (Scroll down after synopsis of "Sundog" to read beginning of next novel entitled, "Misfit in the World"

Synopsis of the Book: The first sentence of my novel, "To See a Sundog" draws you into the small rural farm community of Sawhill, Missouri in 1952. "The town of Sawhill, Missouri is like a mobile that gently swings back and forth, and on most days it swings in harmony, but when one side of the mobile tips and bends, the whole town tips and bends with it."

Here you meet Jeb and Mary Anne Blexley who are struggling with the loss of their three year old son; Dan Bradley who is trying to live peacefully with his alcoholic wife and two children; Jenna Louise Harper who has lost her young husband to illness and is falling in love with one of the married men in town, and Jake Blexley who comes back to the farm after fifteen years to reunite with his estranged father.

There is also Ted Faraday, the new bank president in town who nobody trusts, the eccentric and uppity Martha Winthrop, the exuberant teen, Edie Mahoney who wants to fly airplanes, and the town gossip who loves to embellish a good story even if it is harmful which it often is...

An event occurs midway through the novel that brings the whole town together to help each other, showing that, in the midst of tragedy, people coming together can heal a community.

The title of the book refers to "sundogs" (mini rainbows) which are signs in the book of mini-miracles showing that everything is going to be alright. "Just God winking at us," says one of the characters in the novel.

This book gives a realistic depiction of rural farm life, its difficulties and hardships, and shows the very smart, hard-working farmer doing the multi tasks a person in his own business would have to do. A segment in the book deals with the encroachment of large industries trying to take over the small family farm.

There are four children in the novel, each of whom have specifically developed personalities and struggles, and one of whom saves his sister from disaster in a very dramatic way.

This is a novel of good character development, realistic small (rural) town dialogue, enlightened and realistic farm community depiction and numerous human interest stories. It is a very heart-warming story filled with surprises that keep you reading, and gives you a very satisfied feeling at the end.

Misfit in the World

Willard Jacob III does not like his name. He isn't sure he likes his nickname either. But when his twin brother, who is limited in numerous ways of the world, had begun calling him Jelly when he wanted this on his toast, he began saying Jelly to get Willard's attention, and it had stuck to him like; well, like peanut butter. Jelly knows that his name is not the only thing different about himself, and even though he lives in New York City with all its diversity, Jelly realizes that he doesn't "fit in the world' in more ways than just his name.

Just when he had this insight is still uncertain. "When does anyone know himself," he wonders, "at least well enough to compare himself to other people around?" Is it the age of reason? And if so, who decides when the age of reason is? Five years? Six years? Seven years? Hell, Jelly knows twenty-year-olds who still haven't reached the age of reason if that means the ability to think.

And how much reasoning are we talking about here? Reason enough to know when mom yells at you, she doesn't like what you are doing, or how to tie your shoe laces so you don't trip, or that three is the square root of nine, or that Einstein was a genius. Now, that man could reason," thinks Jelly. Jelly guesses that he'd reached his own age of reason at about the age of four. He began to "get things" then. Things like, everything did not belong to him, and no he wasn't the most powerful little person in the world; his sister was, and the big people in his life made all the rules.

Rules; now there was a subject he could talk about over a full bottle of wine. Rules, he had decided at an early age, were fluid and flexible and allowed you to adjust them up or down or sideways depending on who you were, or what you wanted. And, of course, how much money you had. Rules were made for the gullibles of the world was Jelly's thinking; made for people who needed solid structure, guidance, and Big Brother to tell them what to do. Look at all the people still racing to church every week, not to pray or worship, but still looking for someone else to tell them what to do, and how to live. As if their own brains were bowls of luke warm mush.

"And rules don't come with assurances either," thinks Jelly For example, what about the rule of crossing the street safely right here in New York City? This is a safety rule you can "take to the bank," thinks most New Yorkers when a bright yellow hand goes up to tell them when to cross, and then ticks off twenty seconds: 20-19-18-17-16-15-14-13-12-11- 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 for them to walk right before getting hit by the foreign taxi driver who isn't paying attention to any rules; he can't even understand English for God's sake. Do you think he's following the 20 second rule before he makes his turn and hits you at number 13? Jelly thinks he'd rather be in the taxi with the driver....might be safer, but of course then, he wouldn't get where he wanted to go. No matter how intelligible and clear he is about directions and his destination, it won't matter. For, how can a man who has just arrived here, well ahead of his English, get you to 32nd and Broadway? "You'd be better off getting out and walking, avoiding all crosswalks, if you know what I mean," thinks Jelly.

On this day, Jelly is walking down the back streets of New York City. For some New Yorkers, this means Madison Avenue instead of Fifth Avenue, but for Jelly, it is the streets that are well away from the maddening crowd of frantic tourists who are desperate to begin their shopping for N.Y. souvenirs, designer shoes, jewelry, hats, luggage, clothes; you name it...they're after it and New York has it. No, he is walking the back streets where he can actually hear a bird chirping in the one tree he can see; hear the click-clack of the high heel shoes on the lady walking behind him; hear the pissing of the man behind the garbage can and see a vendor rolling out his carpet of trinkets and "knock-off" jewelry for the day's selling enterprise that will keep body and soul together for one more day, as well as feed his wife (or wives) and children living upstairs in the one room flat with no bathroom. No wonder the whole building had an odoriferous smell as he walked by. Where do people without bathrooms go, he wonders. Oh yes, he forgot...the man behind the garbage can.

Jelly is on his way to the public library to do more research on his new interest of ocean sponges. Somewhere he has read that we all originated from the sponges in the ocean....that these sponges, a long, l..........o..........n.........g time ago contained the molecules or DNA, or whatever, inside them to finally evolve into human live form. Of course, the sponge had to come up throught the ranks like everything else, but eventually, sponges did arrive, for better or worse, depending on who you talk to, in the form of human life.

And humans continue to have the qualities of sponges after all these trillions of years because we are still 85-90% water! No wonder everyone walks around with water bottles these days afraid to lose even an ounce of their essence. Now there is an enterprise Jelly wishes he had thought of....selling bottled water to the masses when it was pretty much free for the taking everywhere. "And we say that we have reached the age of reason," Jelly thinks. "Hell-o."