The Ways of Khrem returns us to the type of fantasy setting we enjoyed when prowling the streets of Lankhmar and Sanctuary as readers. The city of Khrem is a vast, epic metropolis of grand statues, lofty spires, dark streets, and darker secrets. Our guide through this fantastical urban labyrinth is a retired master thief, now living a quiet life as Cargill the Bookseller.

Cargills peaceful retirement comes to an end when he is confronted by Wilhelm Drayton, an idealistic young captain of the City Watch, who “recruits” the bookseller into helping him solve murders in the teeming city. The best part is that this is not just a Sherlock Holmes and Watson story, as the action soon erupts when Cargill unmasks an inhuman terror stalking across the rooftops of the city. Cargill finds himself putting his old skills back into play as he throws the rules out the window in battles with death dealing gods of vengeance, subterranean monsters, and the psychopath who murdered the one true love of his youth. Some of these encounters are truly frightening, and not for the faint of heart.

The strength of this book is the setting and the characters. Cargill and Drayton are both intelligent men with their own agendas. Captain Drayton is an idealistic and determined man, who demonstrates real depth when dealing with forces both powerful and malignant. He manages to be somewhat rigid, yet still likeable.

Cargill as a character is alternately cowardly, brave, vengeful, scheming, hilarious, and tragic. He is a most human of heroes struggling to deal with situations much larger than he is, and finding ways to survive.  He brings the reader down into the world of Khrem, letting them see it through his eyes, and allowing them to share his sorrows and triumphs.

The two operate with a rich supporting cast including Grabel, Cargills insufferable yet indispensible manservant; Heinryk and Poole, Drayton’s loyal watchmen; and Keris, Cargills deadly ex-partner from his youth. And finally there is Khrem itself…as much a character in this story as the rest. Khrem is brought to life in both its day to day rituals and routines of its common citizens…and its darkest of places with cavernous streets, giant statues, tunnel-like alleys, and finally the deadly Undercity beneath the streets.

This is a book that succeeds at being greater than the sum of its parts, and will have you wanting to walk the dark streets of Khrem again.

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Cinders

This man is mysterious, and Cinderella is sure she’s still in love with him because his love was real while her Prince Rowland’s love is tainted and governed by magic. Cinderella soon sets out to find her true love again, but encounters death and heartache around almost every turn.

Written in a poetic, literary tone, Cinders is reminiscent of the original Grimm’s fairy tales. It is dark, visceral, and filled with twists and turns that will surprise any reader. In Cinders, Cinderella may be a character who readers find hard to love, but she is also a character we can relate to, one who makes decisions that will keep readers thinking long after they close the book.

Available at Amazon and Smashwords!

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Living with the Truth by Jim Murdoch

Picture, for a moment, Jonathan Payne, probably the last person in the world you would expect to be the lead character in anybody’s novel, a faded old bookseller nearing the end of a wasted life. We meet him alone in his flat in a seaside town in the north of England just waiting on Death to knock at his front door.

But life has something else in store for poor Jonathan. Instead of Death he gets to spend an infuriating two days with the personification of truth who opens Jonathan’s eyes to not only what his life has become but what it might have been. He discovers what he’s missed out on, what other people are really thinking and the true nature of the universe which, as you might imagine, is nothing like he would have ever expected it to be.

By the end of the book, having learned far more about himself than he ever wanted to know, Jonathan discovers that it’s usually never too late to start again. Only sometimes it is.

What Murdoch presents us in Living with the Truth and its follow-up Stranger than Fiction is a mixture of bittersweet comedy, philosophy, science fiction and fantasy; booksellers will struggle to know what shelf to stick this on. He has created in a few deft strokes a completely different take on life as we know it comparable to the writings of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman with a good dollop of Kafka and Dickens mixed in for good luck. Just as Terry Pratchett’s Death gets all the good lines so does Murdoch’s Truth. It’s amazing just how funny telling it as it is can actually be.

This is a character driven work though that focuses on two days in Jonathan’s life but a lot can happen in two days when you have the personification of truth as a companion. The ending is striking and tragic but raises only one really important question: What on earth is Murdoch going to do with his sequel after this ending? Talk about writing yourself into a corner.

The book is listed on Amazon and can be ordered from Amazon.co.uk but the best place to order it is directly from the FV Books site where they have an offer on both books. An eBook version is due out later this year.

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Stefano Boscutti says, "That's a great book over there!"

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This novel is essentially character driven, told in dual-perspective, alternating streams of consciousness; not only is this mode of narration very immersive, but I find that the POV switching works admirably well. This way we get protagonists on an equal footing, instead of an asymmetrical relationship by having only the point of view of the heroine like many novels do.

The protagonists are a young, devout married couple, that procrastinated conceiving children until they are prompted to do so by Providence itself, only the ritual requires that they perform the deed on holy ground. This is merely the opening (about 20% of the novel), meant mostly for purposes of characterization, but I enjoyed the slow start. The plot unravels quickly enough anyway, and when it does, the author doesn’t give the reader much of a break, as the stream of information runs fast and is quite intellectually challenging! Also, be warned this is a literary title, saturated with literary terms, so keep your dictionaries within reach! But it suited me just fine, because I love learning new words, just as I love stories that broaden my horizons. Besides, the prose is impeccable, while the sex is scorching hot, paradoxically inflaming the imagination while leaving nothing to it!

The wide array of secondary characters is as engaging as is it eclectic, ranging from monks to mobsters—and also drooling sexy for the most part. Kudos to the author for successfully developing most of them in less than twenty pages each, which is quite a feat. I also find commendable that she addresses a multitude of controversial topics within the scope of a single book, including but not limited to: prostitution, illegal immigration, violent retaliation, sexual repression, adultery, world religions… and she does so not proselytizing and rarely judging, but from progressive and insightful standpoints.

Let’s not forget the plot, which unfolds without the reader quite realizing it. Despite my best efforts, I consistently failed at guessing what would happen next. And the ending is breathtakingly stunning, I swear! A bit of a warning to HEA unconditionals: it isn’t, although the ending isn’t tragic either, but rather open-ended, presaging a sequel—which I look forward to.

Who should read this book: Those who like well-written prose, original premises, bold themes, and scorching sex.

Who should not read this book: Those easily shocked by politically incorrect material will have a heart attack by page 50!

Considering all of the above, here comes the time to grade it. On a scale of ten…

My rating: 10/10

What, you wouldn’t accuse me of being biased in favor of my own book, would you?

Visit Muriel Lede’s Official Blog!

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Many of us say that the reviews don’t matter.  Reviews don’t encourage us to read a book or not.  Reviews don’t discourage authors.  Well, many of us lie too!  There isn’t a single self-pub’ed author out there who doesn’t check out their reviews on Amazon.  We may not always like them, but whether it’s two stars or five stars, we pay attention and read them. And while we shouldn’t take a bad review to heart, they still have an effect on us.

Now, don’t worry.  LLBR isn’t about to become a self-reviewing site for self-published books.  Heck, who would give their own book a bad review anyway, right?  This is meant to be a fun experiment.  But we aren’t looking for pitches either.  Don’t try to sell us on why we should read your book. Just as if you were reviewing some other book on your own, tell us what you liked about it and why you’d read it.  Tell us the good parts.  And tell us the bad parts if you think there are any.

Start by writing your review.  Try to keep it to a good 10 to 20 sentences.  Email it to us at llbookreview@gmail.com along with a cover pic of your book, an author headshot if you have it, and include a link to where your book can be purchased (Amazon.com is a good one if your book is available there).

We’ll post a couple of reviews each week, calling this series Read My Book!  Readers and blog surfers out there can chime in too.  Read the reviews and post comments letting us know if you would read this book based on the review from the author.  We all know that unfortunately Amazon.com’s star rating and reviews can make or break a product.  Here’s your chance to see if your own review of your book would help gain any readers.  Be creative!  Heck, tell us who shouldn’t read your book and why!

So, take off the author hat and put on your reviewer book.  Step outside the galley proof and take a good look at your book.  Then, write a quick review and send it to us.  Tell us why we should read your book!

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I love a success story. With over 4,000 reviews on Amazon.com, over 80 weeks at #1 on the NYT Bestsellers List for Trade Paperback fiction, and well over 1 million copies in print, I’d say The Shack by William Young is indeed successful. Young wrote the book as a Christmas gift for his six children and had no intention of ever publishing it. But after being persuaded by friends who read it, Young worked with several colleagues to polish the work for publication.

It was turned down by almost 30 traditional publishers (even religious focused ones), so the group formed their own imprint with the intention of publishing only this one title: Windblown Media.  After spending three hundred dollars on a website to promote the book, not much else was spent on marketing it until September 2007. The success of the book came mostly in the summer of 2008 thanks to word-of-mouth in church groups, on Christian radio shows, blogs, websites, and more.

The story focuses on Mack Philips whose youngest daughter, Missy, is kidnapped while on a camping trip.  Mack blames himself for not being able to save Missy and becomes angry at God for allowing her disappearance to happen.  Three years later Mack receives a strange note in his mailbox.  It seems to be a note inviting Mack to meet God for the weekend at the shack where Missy’s clothes had been found several hours after her disappearance. Mack assumes the letter is a joke, but curiosity gets the best of him and he decides to go.

The book begins and ends with a note from one of Mack’s friends, Willie, giving the reader a glimpse of what kind of person Mack was before and after the incident occurred, and what brought him to write about it.  It gives the book a nice “true story” quality although the book is indeed fiction. The foreward even apologizes for “some factual errors and faulty remembrances” which I thought was strange. From there, the next few beginning chapters set the scene of Mack taking his kids on the camping trip.  I enjoyed the James Patterson-esque quality that Young pens, setting the reader up for something mysterious that is about to happen, ending each chapter on a single suspenseful sentence that leaves you wanting to read more.

Unfortunately, Young concentrates on some traits of his character’s actions that seem trite, and avoids the qualities that you find yourself caring more about.  And as I’ve said before in reviews of books, this tends to “tell” the reader what is happening rather than “showing” them as he pushes forward into the depth of the tale. The kid’s innocent questions about why God is so angry make for a very uncomfortable, but familiar, scene that is handled beautifully by the author and his lead character, but later as the family meets other campers, all the characters become chess pieces that just move nowhere important on the page, even after Missy disappears.

The most interesting aspect of the story is how God appears to Mack.  I won’t spoil it for you here, but thought it was best summed up by a quote from God on page 93 of the paperback edition:

Mackenzie, I am neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from my nature.  If I choose to appear to you as a man or a woman, it’s because I love you. For me to appear to you as a woman and suggest that you call me Papa is simply to mix metaphors, to help you keep from falling so easily back into your religious conditioning.

God and Jesus also have a sense of humor.  When Mack first arrives, God is listening to music West Coast Juice music, a group of musicians that God explains hasn’t even been born yet.  And later when Mack comments on how Jesus looks, Jesus says “It’s my nose, isn’t it? …Well, I am Jewish.”  Jesus and Mack even try to walk on water together. And there is insight to be found in Jesus’s humor as well, such as when he says “I don’t create institutions…I’m not too big on religion…and not very fond of politics or economics either.

The meat of the book is several discussions between Mack and God that take place over a day or two.  Mack stresses his frustration at God for allowing what happened to Missy, and God stresses love and relationship and acceptance.  As in when you are searching for the answer in prayer, neither Mack nor the reader is really told why God allows such things to happen. We just have to accept the fact that it’s not always God’s will, and those that cause us harm do so because they don’t know God’s love and they are lost.  Here’s another quote that I highlighted to use to make some sense of this:

The problem is that many folks try to grasp some sense of who I am by taking the best version of themselves, projecting that to the nth degree, factoring in all the goodness they can perceive, which often isn’t much, and then call that God. And while it may seem like a noble effort, the truth is that it falls pitifully short of who I really am. I’m not merely the best version of you that you can think of. I am far more than that, above and beyond all that you can ask or think.

Huh?  Are you lost?  Don’t worry.  Even Mack was for a while.

But aside from the Who is God? question, there are other part of the book that are quite beautiful and make complete sense.  Such as Jesus’s thoughts on the planet:

Our earth is like a child who has grown up without parents, having no one to guide and direct her.

Or Jesus’s statement on WWJD:

Seriously, my life was not meant to be an example to copy. Being my follower is not trying to ‘be like Jesus,’ it means for your independence to be killed. I came to give you life, real life, my life. We will come and live our life inside of you… But, we will never force that union on you. If you want to do your thing, have at it. Time is on our side.”

While both Mack and the reader still search for meaning as to why God allows bad things to happen, we are finally treated to somewhat of an answer over half way through the book:

He doesn’t stop a lot of things that cause him pain. Your world is severely broken. You demanded your independence, and now you are angry with the one who loved you enough to give it to you. Nothing is as it should be, as Papa (God) desires it to be, and as it will be one day. Right now your world is lost in darkness and chaos, and horrible things happen to those that he is especially fond of.

And my favorite quote came near the end in Mack’s last conversation with Jesus:

Those who love me come from every system that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslims, Democrats, Republicans and many who don’t vote or are not part of any Sunday morning or religious institutions. I have followers who were murderers and many who were self-righteous. Some are bankers and bookies, Americans and Iraquis, Jews and Palestinians. I have no desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa (God), into my brothers and sisters, into my Beloved.

This last quote surprised me since the book has become such a positive topic of discussion amongst organized religious groups, and the book has an underlying theme against such institutions.  But, just like the Bible, there’s a lot in here and you just have to read it and take away from it whatever reaches out and touches you. The conclusion the book needed to satisfy the reader is unfortunately wrapped up literally in a matter of sentences, again “telling” the reader what happened rather than drawing the story out to a full conclusion.  By then, I was honestly bored with the book and just ready for it to end.

I fully admit this is an interesting read.  It’s very original and very insightful.  Is it the best book I’ve ever read?  No.  Is it heartfelt and full of emotion?  Yes, in it’s on way.  But so is Mitch Albom and Nicholas Sparks. Overall, it lacked in the areas that interested me more, and bored me just like a Baptist preacher’s hour long sermon in what should have been, and probably is to some, the best part of the book. Like religion and Christianity is to me, the book is left up to interpretation.

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One glimpse at the title of Sunni Morris’s book and you probably conjure up visions of Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster living in her old mansion, penned by Charles Dickens back in 1861, wondering around in her old wedding dress and “looking like the witch of the place.”

While it’s not obvious if Morris was inspired by Dickens Great Expectations or not, those who love a big spooky mansion, ghosts, and witches, will not be disappointed by reading her first book Haversham Hill. Morris originally queried us with her second book, but after taking a look at all of her work, I requested to read this because I’m a sucker for a haunted mansion full of history and ghosts.

Amber O’Donnell, the lead character, also falls in love with the three hundred year old mansion deep in the New England woods. She and her two daughters purchase it as an escape from the city and as a new start.  The real estate agent is a bit too eager to be rid of the listing, a sure sign that this may not be Amber’s dream home after all.  And as the family settles in, those dreams soon become nightmares.

Morris has a strong talent for description, almost reminiscent of Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour, another book about big old houses rich in family history. She really helps the reader to envision every little detail of the mansion and the surrounding grounds. And like Rice, while I enjoyed Morris’s attention to detail, she sometimes becomes too wrapped up in it and ends up straying from the story too much and finding it hard to get back.

Like any good ghost story, the set-up begins with the things that go bump in the night.  The children begin seeing and hearing things.  Both the family in the story and the reader find themselves on the edge of their seats as Morris sets up a glorious and believable haunting that any A&E ghost chaser would want to investigate.

But rather than being afraid, the O’Donnell’s set out to investigate what they are hearing and seeing and why it is happening in their new home.  What they discover is a whole family of ghosts, with a young girl named Carrie at the center of their fears.  Carrie is a restless spirit who intends to befriend the girls so she can return to our world by possessing one of them.

Morris also adds a touch to the supernatural by introducing a strange black cat and a raven to the haunting, traditional Halloween or Poe symbols which we’ve come to associate with the genre both in movies and books. Rather than being stereotypical here, I thought they added a nice unexpected touch to the story. A good ghost tale wouldn’t be complete without a town witch named Sadie running a Magick store in town, who the O’Donnells seek out for help.

Taking into account that this is Morris’s first book and was published two years ago, I’m going to overlook the formatting and editorial issues.  The dark boding green cover definitely fits the story, but may not appeal to readers at first glance.  I’d much prefer to see touches of blue, black, and gray with the mansion on the cover set deep in a grove of trees, maybe a salute to those old Gothic romances.  While Morris definitely helps you picture what the old house looks like, a visual on the cover would be a nice touch.

Sunni’s embraces the genre here.  It’s not too much horror; I don’t even think I would classify the book as horror at all.  An old creepy mansion, a fatherless family, ghosts, witches, cats, and ravens have laced our campfire stories for years.  There’s always a twist on the legend, but most of us know how it turns out in the end.  All the predictable clichés are here. But why else would we keep telling those stories if we didn’t love them?  Kudos to Morris at her take on the story.  With a good edit and a new book cover, I’d shelve this one next to my King, Koontz, and Rice any day.

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True, some people can probably invest very little money in their book and get just as much exposure.  The internet provides us with limitless possibilities when it comes to free marketing. But we shouldn’t depend upon the world wide web solely for those opportunities.  Take advantage of them?  Absolutely!  But you should still invest in physical copies of you own book (That is, if you are publishing it at all in hard copy…the reason for my post) so that you can be armed with the best marketing material there is: a copy of your book.

It’s odd to consider these days that an author can publish completely online and have their book only available as a download and make money.  Chances are, if you are like me or at least half of the POD community, you’ll make more money from E-sales than physical copies.  But if you are like me, you also still like to hold a physical book in your hand.  You like the crisp smell of its pages.  You like the feel of it, of words on paper. Nothing beats a physical book in my hands!  I still buy them.  I still read them.  And I still prefer to review them that way.

I see author blogs or Facebook posts all the time with random pics of your books stacked on your desk or shelved neatly on your book shelf.  Looks good, doesn’t it?  Feels good too.  I have a stack of my own like that.  They are signs of our hard work and we should be proud of them. They make good conversation pieces when company comes over.  Visitors always stop and wonder why you have so many copies of one book on your shelf.  So, good for you for having more than one copy!  But now it’s time to put a few of those copies to work for you.  Chances are not every copy will have a return as far as the investment goes, but in no random order, here’s a list of ways to put those copies to good use when it comes to marketing your book:

1. Donate one copy to your local library.
2. Did you write a children’s or teen interest book?  Donate a copy to a local school library or to the school you went to.
3. Send a copy to your local newspaper along with a press release.  Be sure to send it to the attention of the arts and variety editor or local interest section.
4. Send a copy to at least one national newspaper along with a press release.  Again, to the attention of the review editor.
5. Send a copy to a literary magazine or journal.
6. Send a copy to a review site or book review blog (www.llbookreview.com is a good one).
7. Send a copy to a local book club.
8. Send a copy to your local independent bookstore as part of a marketing kit or press release.  Bookstores love to receive advanced free copies and often give them  to their employees to read and suggest to customers.
9. Send a copy to your local chain bookstore.  Most of the time they won’t invest in stock of your book if it is sold non-returnable, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
10. Find a top reviewer of books in your genre on Amazon.com and contact them, asking if they’d like a copy of your book.  I’ve had several authors contact me through Amazon this way because of my previous reviews.
11. Sell copies of your book on Amazon.com or on sites like abebooks.com. Advertise them as “signed by the author.”  This is an excellent way to get a fast return financially!
12. Offer free copies on your blog, on Facebook, or on Twitter as a raffle.  Create fun contests for your readers!
13. Give away free copies on bookmooch.com.  I’m currently doing this, asking readers to only mooch my book if they are willing to review it for me on Amazon.com.  I’m trying to gain more reviews of my book there, and so far I’ve had two people request my book.
14. Give advanced copies away on goodreads.com.  GoodReads will keep track of the entries and let you set your own deadline.  They will also draw random winners for you at the end of the raffle and let you know who they are.  All you have to do is ship the book.  GoodReads also encourages readers to post a review of the book on their site.  Include a nice thank you card with the book and ask them to review it on Amazon for you too.
15. In your car, book bag, or purse.  You never know who you are going to run into and strike up a conversation with.  It could be an excellent bragging opportunity and you could let your book be your business card.
16. In a waiting room.  If you find books in your doctor’s office, dentist office, at the hospital, or any other waiting room you’ve frequented, why not conveniently leave one of your own books there in the mix?  You never know who will pick it up.  This is an excellent opportunity for anyone who wrote a book specific to the field:  nursing biographies, doctor advice, dental, self-help, etc.
17. Hospital Giftshops.  Most hospital gift shops have a small selection of eclectic books.  This is a great chance to get your book front and center.
18. At a literary festival. Check your state for any local book festivals that might be taking place.  Sign up to attend or join a group that might be attending.  Or just go to the festival as a visitor and pass out copies of your book to people you strike up a conversation with.  Our own LK Gardner-Griffie has connected with many readers at festivals in her area.
19. Story-Time!  There’s always a book being read to kids on a Saturday at a bookstore, at a preschool or in a kindergarten class, or at your local library.  If you wrote a kid’s book, why not talk to the director about being a special guest and featuring your book.
20. College Campuses!  Don’t forget your campus bookstore, campus library, campus clubs, writing groups, historical societies, etc.
21. Places frequented by your target audience.  This place plays off #16 a bit, but think about it.  The people who you want to read your book, who you wrote the book for, might not frequent bookstores.  Did you write a story about a coupon clipping queen?  Sell your book on a card table outside the grocery store (Move over girl scouts!) or talk to your grocery manager about an event.  Did you write the next Friday Night Lights?  Peddle your book at the high school concession stand. Are you penning your biography about being a Karate teacher?  Go talk to karate schools and classes one night!  A how-to book on growing rare vegetables?  Stop by the local farmer’s market. The point is go find your audience! Don’t wait for them to find you.
22. Community Centers.  Find out if your local center has a free lending library.  This is also a nice way to connect with grown-ups who loiter around while the kids are in the pool, and a nice way to let your neighbors kindly know there’s an author living next door.
23. Internet Cafes and Coffee Shops.  Again, most have a lending library.  Or stop by on Open Mic night and get up and read from your book.  I once bought a local cookbook that was being promoted next to the cash register in a coffee shop.  The point is most people who frequent these places appreciate local work and artists.
24. Flea markets, rummage sales, and garage sales.  Most people are looking for cheap books here, but if you signed your book and talked them up as “signed limited first editions,” you’re sure to draw some interest.
25. Airports, bus stations, and train stations.  Most of these have a literature kiosk or reading rack.
26. Visitor centers or tourist attractions.  Add a “local author” sticker to the front of your book and display it next to the other local interest books.

So there you have it!  Twenty-six places where you could market your book and put that overstock on your coffee table to some good use.  Take into account that if you are mailing copies of your book to various places there’s postage and packing materials to consider.  Always pack them sufficiently so the book arrives in perfect condition.  Also, don’t approach these places with a chip on your shoulder and don’t lie.  You’re not a bestselling author (yet).  Your a local author whose looking for readers. Don’t expect payment up front either.  You should be willing to donate copies of your book to most local places or work out a deal to sell on consignment. Or if you are dealing with a bookstore or coffee shop, take down their billing information and send them an invoice.

Do you have other odd places where you successfully sold your book?  If so, we want to hear about it.  Post them here as a comment or shoot us an email and we’ll include them in a future post.

Happy marketing!

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The Garden of What Was and Was Not
The Autobiography of X
Book One
(as told to) David Stone
Copyright © 2008
ISBN 9780595439454
iUniverse
250 Pages
$16.95 Paperback
$15.25 Amazon

I came across David Stone’s book, The Garden of What Was and Was Not, on a random Amazon.com search one day.  I was immediately captured by the title and after reading the product description I decided to contact the author to see if he was willing to send a copy for me to review.  Mr. Stone gladly agreed and I had a copy of the book in the mail in just a few weeks.  I think what caught my curiosity the most was the subtitle: The Autobiography of X. I immediately considered Malcolm X, but the cover of the book doesn’t indicate that this book might be about him, and indeed it’s far from it.  The Garden of What Was and Was Not is actually a fictional autobiography of a man named Peter McCarthy, as if he is telling his life story to the author. It begins in the 60s, but don’t think this is a nostalgic walk down memory lane for a baby boomer reminiscing about the Beatles, Vietnam, Elvis, drugs, peace, and all the hippie culture that today’s generation is left only to read about in the back of their history books.

That X in the subtitle is almost like a “fill in the blank” for anyone who may have grown up in that era, but not really been a part of the bigger picture.  Maybe you never got to see the Beatles or Elvis in concert, but their music was still the soundtrack to your weekends.  Maybe you didn’t go off to war, but you feared the draft and you lost friends who did go.  Maybe you didn’t smoke pot, but you breezed through a party and its pungent smell pierced your nostrils and you knew immediately what it was. You didn’t get arrested at a peace rally, but you picketed and chanted right along with the rebellious ones safely in front of the black and white television in your living room. You may not have been a part of that history, but it was a part of you.

My generation may still not be convinced or even entertained by the tales of some “old man”, but David Stone’s book does pan forward to 2003, just two years after 9/11 when Peter recounts “where he was” on that day we all remember.  Now ask yourself if you were in New York when the first plane hit the first tower?  I wasn’t.  But I do know where I was; I will never forget.  Peter even says in the story, “Of course, my story’s nothing special. There were thousands more dramatic. I exercised no acts of heroism or extreme endurance. I escaped to midtown just before the first building was crushed, going ahead with what was intended to be my normal business for the day, and never experienced the swelling walls of dust and death that roared up the canyons as the towers fell.”  Those of us not in New York, those of across the rest of the country experienced it in our living rooms, right in front of the television where our parents saw JFK get shot or heard Martin Luther King’s infamous speech.

Now, David Stone’s book is not about experiencing history through the boob tube.  What it is about is the life we live while history is being made around us.  Peter McCarthy’s life isn’t special.  It isn’t a dramatic biography just eager to be flashed on the big screen, but it is his. He spends most of the book reminiscing about his friends and girlfriends, and various jobs he landed by beefing up his resume after dropping out of high school.  What gives the book its essence is the way the author, or Peter’s own voice, has presented it.  There are pieces like this:

In America, the social landslide began to move like and iceberg accelerating as the ground below turned to grease. Things lost certainty. Change felt inevitable. A wave hovered, throwing an intense shadow, ready to crash over everything on the human shore.

or this…

One of our most pervasive and persistent illusions suggest that there is some sort of separation in time, as if we’re somehow distanced from the past. This capacity, the ability to see life as an ongoing procession measured in uniform distances, evolved because our brains lack the capacity for managing more than a moment or two at once, especially when the moments are not uniform.

Just when you think McCarthy is about to drop into a political or scientific rant, he brings us back to reality with Peter, to scenes so innocent and haunting as falling asleep while overhearing Peter’s girlfriend having sex with his best friend in the bathroom. Much of the book takes place in the 60s and 70s.  The sub-subtitle “Book One” suggests that maybe we’ll see more of Peter later on. Having just read John Knowles’ A Separate Peace for the first time  week’s before beginning Stone’s book, I appreciated the “coming-of-age” quality that Stone’s book presented in a more recent generation that I knew more about than Knowles 1940s tale of young boys away at school during war.

And while the historical headlines wallpaper the backdrop to Peter McCarthy’s life, it is the real life everyday actions of his teenage and young adult years that push the story forward.  The first paragraphs of the story put the reader in a specific place in history (the assassination of JFK), but then we are walking down an old country road with Peter and his friend as they wander around in the early hours of morning past curfew.  They are the moments in our lives that we wish would never end, that we don’t consider being historical, but Stone embraces them and reminds his reader that those moments will undoubtedly slip away from us all.

Being a white male in my thirties, growing up in a blue-collar family in the 80s and 90s, had I read Stone’s book ten years ago I would have probably been bored to tears.  But someone once said the universe picks what book you read, why and when. As I approach middle age and look back, Stone’s book couldn’t have come at a better time for me.  Baby boomers might shed some tears as you walk in the garden with Peter, but this is a book for anyone who found themselves just going through the motions of life, only to discover life is what happened when you were too busy just going through the motions.  David Stone, thank you for the wake up call!

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