SUGAR OF LEAD

About the Book

Michael "Sugar" Pierce is the thirty year old protagonist of this gothic-gangster-surreal novel that brutally yet poetically confronts America's favorite unspoken blood sport, murder.  A Caucasian American mobster lost among Asian American mobsters on the Malibu coast of Southern California's Pacific Rim, Michael Pierce is a foreigner in his own land.  Love, death, the present and the past intertwine in a savage ritual dance for Pierce's soul as he attempts to atone for the murder of the man he considers his "blood brother", Simon Rhee, and at the same time save the love of his life, Simon's widow, Katherine Song Rhee.  Sugar of Lead poses these questions: can a stone killer, a man stained with the blood of many individuals, still redeem, if not his own life, then at least the life of another?  Is there anything of human value left in such a man?  Can this man alchemize from the very poison that has so crippled his existence?  Sugar of Lead offers surprising answers to all these questions.

About the Author

Almer John Davis is a successful private teacher and published novelist, short story writer, poet, and produced screenwriter.  His shorter pieces have appeared in the magazines "Poetry L.A.", "Crosscurrents" and "Writer's Forum".

His novel The Manchilde, Iron Tree Press, was called "Notable" and "highly imaginative" by the Los Angeles Times.  Publishers Weekly described it as a "novel for those who enjoy probing for meaning in experimental prose."  Prolific American author Joyce Carol Oates has read sections of his novel The Vanishing Woman and terms them, "... extremely well-written and suspenseful ... Davis is talented."   Louis Owens, author of Bone Game and The Sharpest Sight calls Davis,

" ... a writer I value ... "  Author Jeanne Cavelos, The Science of The X Files, says about his novel Sugar of Lead, "... the writing is beautiful ... imbued with power and poetry ... the characters are fascinating and compelling ... the plot satisfying, yet surprising

... "  Alex Blackburn, editor of Writers Forum, University of Colorado, says, "Davis has tremendous dramatic talent."  His play Blood Red Horses On The Moon has received staged readings at First Stage and the Tiffany Theatre in Los Angeles.  His screenplay Under The Gun was independently produced in Los Angeles as well.

As a successful private teacher, he founded an SAT Prep Academy for high school students, and during the course of ten years, he has taught hundreds and hundreds of young people.   The insights he has gleaned from his years of teaching Korean-American students and from his contact with Korean culture in general here in America have been imaginatively woven into his novel Sugar of Lead.

Mr. Davis is married, has three sons, and with his wife and family, makes his home in Chino Hills, California.