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.

Friday, October 22, 2021

This Side of Paradise

Everyone knows The Great Gatsby is the prettiest and best book ever written, but it's the only one by Fitzgerald I had read until this week. I've been saving him up, and I just spent two more of his four completed novels. The elitism and social climbing were off-putting through Tender is the Night and on until the second half of This Side of Paradise, where the protagonist's evolution picked up and he ended, unexpectedly, as a dharma bum, speaking compellingly for the spirit of an entire generation, not just a privileged piece of it. I don't recall being so pleasantly surprised by a book. Glad I forced my way through it. Why Paris has been on my mind, and a lovely way to end the early "retirement" of looking for the right job before getting back to work!

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