02/14/2023
Thank you for expressing your birthday best wishes; I appreciate it.
A few days ago, I suffered a severe chemical burns to my hands. This, along with my impending 85th birthday, started me thinking about mortality.
I asked myself what more I had to live for. I’ve traveled. I’ve loved. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve written and published six nonfiction books on esoteric topics (some people call them fiction). I’m proud to say the books have sold well.
Is there anything left to do except watch the slow deterioration process? Not really…especially since one of my beliefs—I don’t have many—is in the existence of reincarnation. The thought of being born again at some future time in a new body after shedding my kundalini-wracked body is an interesting prospect, one I believe will take place sometime in the future. Fifty years of the force realigning my body has taken a heavy toll on my neural and metabolic systems.
As a result, my eyes are gradually failing; I can hardly drive. Reading and writing require a magnifying glass. Other bodily subsystems are breaking down as well. Compared to others my age, I’m not that far gone. I walk; I sleep; I eat without difficulty. I’m not complaining; I’m not at my wits’ end. In fact, I should be celebrating. I take very few prescription medicines.
Today on my birthday, my seventh book went live on Amazon. Tales of the Tinkertoy (TOTT) is fiction. Readers who’ve enjoyed my nonfiction books have passed over it. Let me explain why.
I've sold a lot of books on esoteric topics, nonfiction, receiving fantastic support from readers.
TOTT is a creative flight of imagination and life experience. The people who bought my previous books? Well, I sort of expected they might not respond to a change of genre. But not to the extent that now plagues TOTT’s release.
That’s the power of genre. Readers are trained, whether they know it or not, to limit themselves to certain genres and ignore everything else.
Let me tell you about TOTT. It’s a good book on its own; test readers have said so, and I know they are sincere.
In essence, TOTT is about one of my favorite topics: the journey, as in the journey and the destination, which I consider equal partners in the quest for self-knowledge.
The action is set in the 1960s. Gus, the hero, is stuck in the high-stress world of great expectations, surrounded by a rich monied family: Expensive prep schools, Ivy League, Marine Corps, television news. Gus wants to succeed, yet he’s wracked by ambivalence. Ambivalence is not indifference. He’s good at his work, but it’s not sufficient. As the pages turn, he searches for something more substantial.
Gus is not white, he’s not Black either, he’s a mix of races, a sort of multiracial projection of America’s future, dark enough to make the dominant culture uneasy. Not so the women who are attracted to him.
In short, TOTT is about a journey. Could Gus’s journey fit your circumstances, a trip you might model yourself after? Probably not. Different time, different circumstances. But he is a model for overcoming the suffocating temptations of conformity with its material comforts.
One of the best ways for a book to attract attention is from Amazon reviews. I’d love it if you’d read TOTT. I’d be even more grateful if you wrote an Amazon review, hopefully a favorable one. I’d be delighted!
https://amzn.to/40PlqUa