The French poet Paul Valery once said, “Poems are never finished, merely abandoned.” The same, I would venture to suggest, could be said of novels. On the rare occasions when I am foolish enough to pick up one of my earlier books, I find myself cringing, constantly editing, revising, and wishing for a chance to do over. But you can’t, …
Paradise – Arrival
It struck me that simply delivering slabs of the new book probably wasn’t a great idea – lack of context and all that. Better instead to offer up a few choice bits which give a flavor of what is to come. To that end, here’s another excerpt from early on in the book. The narrator’s grandparents have just arrived in …
152,531…
… is a big number. It’s the number of words, as of right this instant, that are in my book. If memory serves, this is more than double the number of words in my first novel, Working It Out. (Of course, whether that is a good or a bad thing is open to debate.) Anyway, I am inching slowly towards …
Whether the Weather Be Hot. Or Not.
It’s been a nutty winter for weather, even by Missouri standards. The day my parents left the temperature was 20 degrees below zero, when the wind chill was taken into account – and yes, that’s Fahrenheit, if you were wondering. Exactly a week later it was 60 degrees and brilliant sunshine. With such unpredictable and extreme swings, it should …
Jazz in Columbia – two shows not to miss
For those of you in central Missouri, I wanted to let you know about two astonishing, world-class jazz gigs that are taking place over the next couple of months as part of the “We Always Swing” Jazz Series. Both take place at the Missouri Theatre Center for the Arts. Both will be memorable, wonderful nights. First off, on February 18, …
Mother's Little Helper
If you’ve never sat in a car listening to a seven year-old happily sing along to an old Rolling Stones song about anti-depressants, utterly oblivious to the lyrics, then you should. Works far better than any little pill. Just back from a trip to San Francisco to visit my sister and her family. Parents in tow. Normal service (whatever that …
Paradise, Part 2
The voice that had halted Jette’s afternoon walk belonged to my grandfather, Frederick Meisenheimer, and in fact Jette’s intuition had been exactly right: he was singing directly to her. Frederick had watched her make her way around the path, following the same route she always followed. When she passed in front of the bush he was hiding behind, he crossed …
Opening Bit (technical term) to my new novel, "Paradise" – You Read it Here First
Always, there was music. It was music – Puccini, to be precise – that first drew my grandparents into each other’s orbit, more than a hundred years ago. It was an unusually warm afternoon in early spring, in the grandest municipal garden in Hanover, the Segerpark. My grandmother, Henriette Furst, was taking her usual Sunday stroll among the regimented flowerbeds …
OK, then.
Thanks, JB, for the tip. Technical gremlins now removed, the opening salvo of “Paradise” will be on its way shortly. Bet y’all can’t wait.
Grand Plan – Help Wanted
I had this grand idea to start posting bits of my new novel up on the blog as a way of hiding the fact that I wasn’t writing anything specific for the blog for long stretches of time. And so I will… if someone can please tell me how to paste chunks of text into the little box which one …