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.

Sunday, May 2, 2021

Thoughts at 4:30 a.m.

One day you realize the cars of your youth are missing from the roads. That Volvo 122S you learned to drive on? Gone. Haven't seen one for years.

When we were young, we didn't know that everything we consumed would make us who we are, that the Dickinson, Tennyson, and Shaw would be more meaty in the long-run than Happy Days and the Brady Bunch, though those sugary concoctions would have their uses, mostly as anchors to a specific time and place and the people who inhabited them with us.
at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)