From J.T. Ryder’s recent blog post comes a flattering cliffnotes version of my book.
…The book began, “As long as I’ve known Howard, he’s been dead.” Three hours later I folded the back cover over the last page and sat corrected. I would have stood so that I would have been able to stand corrected, but my recliner is really comfy. I had to re-read most of the book as I had been so consumed by the clarity of the narrative that I had forgotten to take any notes. The book is filled with anecdotal tales of a family coping with day to day life, from the petty, and sometimes mean spirited taunting of siblings to the inside jokes and secret languages that every family develops, yet all enveloped in the unconditional love of tightly knitted kith and kin.
The
book begins by detailing the only known facts about Howard, the Catholic father of six children, and his sudden demise. The short version being that Howard had fallen into Lake Cumberland while fishing with a neighbor and drowned. Yet, within the fertile minds of his children, absolute truth and factual memories take on a more subjective nature. Maybe Howard wasn’t dead at all and he had just run off to live in a surfer’s paradise. Perhaps his fishing buddy had been a CIA mole and offed Howard because he knew too much. One can argue that it is no accident that Howard died exactly one year before John F. Kennedy, another Catholic patriarch, was assassinated. The mind reels at the possibilities….”
So, if you didn’t get to read the book you can cheat and read Ryder’s poignant and riveting review at Erratic News