Desolation Ghosts is a 65,000-word adult literary fiction novel in the vein of The Human Stain. It is set in North Cascades National Park and is about a missing traumatized female veteran with alcohol and relationship addictions who changes her mind about killing herself, but then falls off a mountain and must survive in the wilderness while park rangers battle over how much effort should be spent to locate her. The story takes place during the Covid-19 pandemic and the beginning of law enforcement reforms following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. This book will appeal to readers who are interested in national parks, outdoor recreation, the Pacific Northwest, and the controversial issue of how emergency services treat people with mental health challenges. It includes exciting stories, based on real-life events, about using rock climbing and short-haul helicopter techniques to rescue a pack string mule who fell off a trail and a mountain climber who fell off a crag, a shoot-out and its impact on park rangers, a couple drownings, an aquatic body recovery and other sad outdoor tragedies, and funny and scary encounters with bears and other wildlife. If you like Jack Kerouac, Nevada Barr, Bree Loewen, Jon Krakauer, Michael Connelly, James Dickey's Deliverance, Matthew Quick's The Silver Linings Playbook or Scott Heim's Mysterious Skin, you may enjoy Desolation Ghosts.

Saturday, April 3, 2021

Charles L. Jackson

I think I should have started a blog to put stuff like this in when I started writing my book, but it's too late now.

Charles R. Jackson published The Lost Weekend in 1944. It was made into the great Ray Milland movie of the same name in 1945, which was maybe the first movie to depict the realities of alcoholism.
Yesterday, by chance, I found a 1950 paperback collection of Jackson's short stories called The Sunnier Side, which I had missed when I collected his other books, one about a married, gay man in the closet and the other about a nymphomaniac woman. The story The Sunnier Side appears to have been inspired by a letter asking Jackson why he chose topics from the darker side of life. In a 69 page response to the letter, Jackson explains how all lives have dark and sunny sides and when you write about life, you have to write about both, so that is why he chooses his topics: they're real.
My book does have a lot of the darker side, but it's written specifically to bring light and understanding and hope to those places.
Here are most of the topics included: Alcoholism, Animal rescues and fatalities in national parks, Animals, Armenian holocaust, Bears, Beat writers, Body recovery, Breast cancer, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Climbing, Covid-19, Death, Demonic possession, Difficulties of missing bodies, Drowning, Grief, Human rescues and fatalities in national parks, Losing a loved one to suicide, Meditation, Mental health barriers to services, Mules and pack string, North Cascades National Park, Outdoor safety, Park Rangers, Park Ranger trauma and suicide, Psych meds, PTSD, Rape, Rattlesnake wrangling, Recovery, Relationships, Religious disillusionment, Search and Rescue, Search and Rescue attitudes, Search and Rescue techniques, Self-soothing techniques, Sex and love addiction, Shoot-out, Sisterhood, Spiritual experience, Spirituality, Suicide, Therapeutic techniques, Veterans, What happens after death, Women in the military
In The Sunnier Side, Jackson also wrote several pages about the complications a writer faces gathering the details of his stories from what he sees and experiences. Though everything in a story is a composite, people can sometimes recognize bits of themselves and are offended or worried. It was something I needed to hear since I've been worried about that. He wrote: "And if the writer should suffer a qualm about putting his best friend in a story ... his next thought will be 'Okay, I'm a snake, but first there's a story to tell.'"
I read an Anne Lamott quote: "If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better" in an article Christopher Schelling wrote about being a character in Augusten Burroughs' books that is also helpful. Article here: https://medium.com/.../i-am-a-character-in-literature...
It's funny I came across a Charles Jackson book that addresses my concerns about a book I wrote that mentions Jack Kerouac several times, since Jack Kerouac mentioned The Lost Weekend in Dharma Bums.
After I read The Lost Weekend 10 years ago, I had to work hard to find Charles Jackson's obituary to find out if he stayed sober. I found it on microfiche at the Portland Library. Here it is:



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