about the books
Born Again
BORN AGAIN, an historical fantasy combining biographical/cultural fact with character-rich fiction. For history buffs, this presents the real world as it evolves from the thirteenth to the twentieth century; for fans of magical realism, this story teases the idea of a selfish, malevolent spirit traveling through time.
The novel traces the successive reincarnations of a 13th century Scottish bastard son of an innocent girl and her lecherous bishop. The sins of Malcolm Murray’s father are visited upon him in the form of physical deformity, making him shunned by his society. Malcolm, although ordained as a priest, becomes an unrepentant sexual predator devoted to the cult of Dionysus. He believes that after his death, he will, like Dionysus, live again. In fact, he “returns” as Diego De Herrera, an Augustinian friar in the 1870s doing missionary work in the Philippines where he becomes convinced that the only way to convert and save the natives is through stern and even cruel self-inflicted punishment. At his death, he expects the reward of heaven, but is instead reborn as Josef Goebbels in 1930s Germany. It is as Goebbels that, through arcane texts, he comes to consciously realize his rebirths, and he uses this knowledge to justify his own excesses.
All three of the characters are historical figures living their experiences in historically accurate places and during true events of their times. For each of them, what they most desire dictates their actions and, ultimately, seals their fates. In addition, each of them bears a physical infirmity which symbolizes/represents their fatal flaw. BORN AGAIN is a tale of how excess, whether good or of bad, has consequences.
A Passion For Tom
”The critics say I am learned and cold. The truth is I am neither,” T.S. Eliot was reported to have said to Virginia Woolf soon after the publication of his seminal poem The Waste Land. The novel combines biographical fact with fiction to imagine Eliot’s failed attempts to be other than a learned, cold man while writing The Waste Land.
In the 1920s, Tom Eliot was a curiosity to literary London society: an expatriate American poet with a distinctive voice who insisted that great poetry must be “impersonal.” In A PASSION FOR TOM, my debut historical fiction, Tom spends 1920-1922 seeking fame (and financial stability) through the publication of his unusually long poem, The Waste Land. His character has been forged from his experiences with a devastating World War One and an influenza epidemic, and he records his changed world in a voice that, at once, echoes the lost past, manifests the disappointing present, and envisions a bleak future. Tom surrenders his humanity for the sake of his poetry. For example, he seduces Lottie, a young housemaid, thereby breaking through his own sexual impotence and emotional frigidity but remaining ignorant and careless of the harm he has done to her because he is more concerned with his own career as a poet. He participates in the destruction of his marriage through pettiness, jealousy, and adultery, while eliciting sympathy from others, like his mentor Ezra Pound. He even finds a way to use his nervous breakdown in the service of his poetry. In short, he was a great poet living inside a fallible, imperfect man.
His interactions with others prove him arrogant in his intellectualism yet naïve and conventional in societal mores. When his poem is finally published in 1922, he has achieved the place he felt he deserved in the world of poetry, and it is the threshold for him to re-evaluate his relationships as a man.
Inevitable
INEVITABLE is based on true events although not memoir, is a literary love story about an urbane May-December relationship that ignites into a passionate affair reminiscent of Lucinda Franks’ memoir of her life with Robert Morgenthau; it is written in a style reminiscent of Elizabeth Strout’s compassionate realism. The novel is structured as a he-said-she-said narrative in alternating chapters, giving the reader both sides of the story as it unfolds.
New York in the 1960s is the lavish backdrop for a chance encounter between a 20-year-old Amerasian college student and a European businessman more than twice her age. Sandy, coming off a failed relationship, is wary of this man’s insincerity, although she is attracted to him because she has never met anyone like him. Peter, thrice married and separated, is looking for nothing more than a beautiful, warm body to bed and show off to his clients. Except for the fact that he is a devoted father, he is almost a cliché for the heartless seducer. But he quickly becomes enthralled with Sandy who struggles to resist his charms. Products of their respective times – he from pre-WW II Hungary, she from post WWII New York – they discover in their age- and cultural differences an undeniable attraction, at first only physical, but then also intellectual and emotional.
Their relationship develops in conflict: they must deal with Peter’s not-quite-ex wife, with Sandy’s dysfunctional family, and with a disapproving society. They battle each other, too: he wants to dress her in high fashion, but she prefers beatnik jeans and floppy sweaters; she is committed to anti-Vietnam War protests and Civil Rights rallies, while he dismisses her political activism as youthful indiscretion.
During an unprecedented Blackout of the entire East Coast, when New York City is plunged in total darkness, a kindness he does for a neighbor is misinterpreted as infidelity. The Blackout becomes a metaphor for their inability to see one another clearly.
They live out the issues of the sixties, especially the burgeoning Women’s Movement, dealing with problems of birth control, abortion, and women’s sexuality. In the end, Peter and Sandy understand that although their love enriches them, they must also decide if it can endure the seeming opposite paths they are taking: he towards a comfortable retirement and she towards a new career and profession.
