You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
If you haven’t already picked up my novels at this online one-month-only sale, don’t delay. You can’t beat the price – mine are free or else half-price.
They should fit your Kindle, Nook, laptop, tablet, or smartphone – any digital device where you’re reading.
All you need to do is hop on down to my booth at Jnana Hodson at Smashwords.com and download them. Take just one or all five novels plus the Blue Rock poems.
I think you’ll be happy you did.
Thinking of freedom, we can see it as personal expression as well as political opportunity. For some of us, that was a big dimension of the hippie movement.
The 50th anniversary of Woodstock is coming up next month. Normally, that would mark a jubilee, some even acclaiming it as a celebration of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Alas, the dark ages we thought had passed have returned from the dead, in intensified deadliness at that.
Jubilee, by the way, is drawn from the Biblical book of Leviticus, and it’s a most radical idea. Every 50 years, all the wealth in the land is to be redistributed. The scriptural passage is inscribed on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, so don’t tell me it’s not American.
~*~
One of the passages I cut before the final version of my novel What’s Left is one where she’s asking her aunt about the hippie experience:
I’ve never asked you about your own drug use.
OK? Can I say it was just enough to convince others I wasn’t a narc?
So were you really a hippie? I mean, you had such short hair!
You trying to say a hippie couldn’t have short hair? Don’t you know how radical my style was? You ever think I could conform to anything?
Well, you’ve indicated you weren’t stoned. I’m going down the list.
Have you considered the impact of the Pill? Or free love?
Oh, I’m so glad Cassia stopped talking like this! In the final version, she’s pretty snippy.
~*~
For the record, some of the truest hippies I’ve known weren’t promiscuous or do drugs. And some others never marched in a protest.
Still, as an image of the era, let me ask: What’s your impression of Woodstock? Have you ever been to a big, multiday festival? What’s your favorite music? How do you best express your free spirit?
Every July, Smashwords has a huge online sale of thousands of books, and many of its authors join in by discounting their prices.
Better yet, this year I’ve decided to go one better and make all but two of mine available for free. Yes, free. Three novels as well as my Blue Rock collected poems. And the other two novels are going for 50 percent off.
Quite simply, I want to encourage more readers to take a chance on a largely unknown author by downloading these books to their Kindle, Nook, laptop, tablet, or smartphone – any digital device where they’re reading. Nothing beats word of mouth or an online review by a real reader who likes it.
As I’ve been finding in my own perusal of books lately, it’s hard to pass up a promising ebook when it’s free – and there’s some fantastic reading available that way.
So hop on down to my booth at Jnana Hodson at Smashwords.com, will you. Please?
I think you’ll be happy you did.
In revising the novel that has been recast as Daffodil Uprising, I began grieving. It wasn’t the feeling I had expected. This was supposed to be a celebration of a remarkable time in world history. Some things really did change as a result.
Not all of them for the better, alas. And many of the lessons arising from Vietnam, especially, still haven’t been learned in realms of political power. And while much of the environment has been cleaned up, the global climate is still headed for disaster.
Repeatedly, I felt this was a requiem.
Part of that must have been a consequence of my long effort of drafting and revising What’s Left, which picks up on the central character a generation later. Or, more accurately, his daughter, Cassia.
But moving on with his story, in what’s now released as Pit-a-Pat High Jinks, I’m feeling wounded. Not by the novels, mind you – I think you’ll find them entertaining, enlightening, and delightful. No, the wounds are from, well, all kinds of losses, many of them my own fault.
I have heard that in the retreat from the outburst of the Quaker movement in the radical uprisings of mid-1600s Britain, many of them had a something of a shellshock look for years after. They had come so close to truly revolutionary societal change and lost that to the Restoration. Well, some of those ideals did come to flower in the American Revolution – the Bill of Rights, especially – but even there, we’ll still falling short.
As the liturgical chanters sing out in accompaniment to prayers in Christian Orthodox worship, Kyrie eleison – Lord have mercy.
Yes, mercy. And hope. And grant us peace.
In my novel, What’s Left, having her family own a restaurant opens another dimension to the story – the changing food tastes of the American public.
If Carmichael’s continued solely as a burger-and-fries joint, we’d have a much different type of story, one based on the day-to-day interactions of line cooks, dishwashers, wait staff, and a slew of customers. One of my daughters has already drafted an exciting and entertaining story based on her own experiences in the trade – now, if she’ll only get it published! Realistically, a restaurant like that would likely wind up in bankruptcy halfway through the novel – or maybe even the victim of arson, if not accidental fire.
So having Carmichael’s expand, as I do, shifts the focus to a revolution in the awareness of food itself. We have plenty to play with that way.
My new novel, What’s Left, opens with her being taken out of her classroom and being told of the death of her father. Well, there’s still a thread of hope, since his body had not been recovered from the avalanche. But the finality weighs in.
What’s an 11-year-old to make of this? She’s been raised in two traditions, each one differing from the mainstream around her.
It’s not the only death in the novel. There’s the tragic collision that kills her grandparents and creates the opening for her father to marry into the family – they no doubt would have thwarted that development. And there are the other ancestors gone by the time Cassia appears on the scene, as well as two uncles who die when she’s too young to understand. But the questions remain.
Some of my favorite answers arise in the 14th chapter. But please remember: no fair peeking ahead.
~*~
The subject of death is difficult enough for adults. For children it’s all the more baffling, once they push past the notion of sleeping but not waking.
What’s the earliest funeral you remember? What were you told? What would you say to others?
~*~
Most of the hippies I knew were from New York City or its suburbs.
No wonder Woodstock was such a big deal. It was just a couple of hours up the road from the Big Apple.
Not all that far from where Kenzie would wind up living in Pit-a-Pat High Jinks, for that matter.
In my new novel, What’s Left, her great-grandmother Maria could quite possibly take off as big juicy book all her own. Well, I sketch what I can of this most colorful character even when the core of this novel is about Cassia and her grief.
In the arms of Ilias the Cypriot, Maria’s left a seedy past in Havana and found forgiveness and redemption in converting to Orthodox Christianity in Chicago. And then, in the next stage, she’s actively contributing to the lives of her grandchildren down in Indiana, including Cassia’s mother, Diana.
She’s indirectly responsible for inspiring her grandson Barney’s great culinary signature creation, the Streetcar sandwich. I’m not even sure if she’s still around to lend it her approval as it comes out of their ovens.
I’m still surprised I allowed Maria and Ilias to fade out of the picture as they do. Maybe their deaths would have simply been too much to add at that stretch of the story. But they are memorable, aren’t they?
~*~
Oh, if only there were figures like them in my family! Oh, now that I’m thinking of it, I can come up with a few. Care to look at the comments in the family cookbook?
Not that we got together that often.
Looking at wider circles, though, the list soon grows.
Who are the most outrageous – and yet loveable – people you know? (Well, I’ll settle on outrageous or loveable. Or even past tense, have known.) What makes them so?
~*~
In my new novel, What’s Left, her father (Baba) has an influential role in transforming the family restaurant even though he’s new to the business. But he’s not alone.
~*~
Here are some passages I cut from the final version:
Baba is an active participant in that year of intense planning, before heading off for his focused Dharma training, those three years in the Tibetan monastery followed by his permanent return here.
…
My search reveals to me how much Baba contributed to the final result. As a visual artist addressing challenges beyond the kitchen itself, he’s amplified the wisdom Dimitri displayed in bringing him on board – and all of his touches fill me with pride.
…
Reflecting on Baba’s contributions to the project, what impresses me most is his sensitivity to the underlying unity. What emerges simply feels right and natural.
~*~
In a traditional business school case study, the spotlight would likely fall on Baba’s future brother-in-law, Dimitri.
Continue reading “If this were a business school case study”
Because of What’s Left, I had a clearer sense of Kenzie’s youth when it came to the revisions that led to Daffodil Uprising than I did back when I published the earlier version.
It’s surprising what a few more years of perspective can add, especially when you now have someone like Cassia sitting beside you.
Is there a personal event you’ve come to understand quite differently now?
Jnana's Red Barn 