Thorns & Roses

About the Book

The book is a pseudo-memoir of events, both real and imagined, taking place (for the most part) in a town called Rustbelt City. The seedy, old industrial town is recalled in imagination, for it has been supplanted by asphalted parking lots, offices for lawyers, and title insurance companies. Written in five sections, it begins in a blue collar subdivision, moves to a farm on the outskirts of town, and then to the penal system of Rustbelt’s educational system. Work and the protagonist’s attitude toward it is exposed in part three. The fourth section introduces persons who would usually be described as” not quite right”. And the last section attempts to show our joy, sometimes not fully perceived beneath the chaos of our lives.

About the Author

This is the fifth book published by the author, all through Xlibris Corporation. Although at present he has received scant acclaim for his novels, he has more than made up for the lack by other achievements. Namely, he won the kite flying contest in sixth grade, an award for the highest grade point average for one year in high school, and won first place in a bodybuilding contest in the category of men over seventy years of age. Instead of a career, he had a disparate succession of jobs. He worked in analytical laboratories, in an oil refinery, tended bar in a honky-tonk, operated a metal lathe in a machine shop, toiled on a small farm as a hippie farmer, and for one agonizing year taught chemistry and physics in a high school. In retirement he writes, plays the violin and the guitar, exercises at a gym, and visits grandchildren.