One thing her great-grandparents Ilias and Maria introduce to my new novel, What’s Left, is the acknowledgement of how much of the family’s business success results from the members who’ve joined in freely, rather than been born into its tree.

Their daughter, Bella, certainly reinforces the triumph, as do Graham, Pia, Yin, and Cassia’s father a generation later.

So where will it go from there? Is there even really room for more? What if the new members don’t get along?

~*~

In recent years I learned that my own family history would have been much different if two of the wives had not conflicted with each other. Do you know of similar discord?

At one point, Cassia admits being a bit jealous of her brothers’ girlfriends. Have you ever felt the same?

~*~

Cassia’s roots included inspiration like this.

In “Golden Age of Grease,” the second chapter of my new novel, What’s Left, I compress a background history of three generations that lead up to Cassia herself. Thanks to her father’s collected photographs and her aunt Nita’s guidance, she and her best friend forever, cousin Sandra, get a sense of what so attracted him to the entire family. What he saw when he arrived was his vision of an ideal hippie commune working around Carmichael’s, their landmark restaurant. Man, was he in for a surprise!

Continue reading “LOOKING FOR TRUE HOME” →

Nita Zapitapoulos is a special character for me. Long before she becomes Cassia’s aunt, in my new novel What’s Left, she appears in all four of my Hippie Trails volumes as a guardian angel and colleague for Cassia’s future father. She also appears obliquely in notes to my Hometown News novel as a journalism professor.

The character was loosely inspired by a sidekick’s descriptions of the girlfriend he’d come to visit. I may have even met her at the time, although I’ll confess she wasn’t of Greek descent at all. I wish I still had the letters with his lavish descriptions of what so attracted him in his whirlwind adventures. She and I may have even passed each other in the same newsroom while working in different departments; I, though, have never been a photojournalist.

A few years ago, far from where all this took place, a mental connection flashed for me during a conversation after a committee session. “Did you know …?” Yes, she remembered him. We’d both lost contact with him decades ago.

In real life, she’s quite different from the impressions that prompted my fictional character. Still, from everything I see now, I’d say they’re both pretty amazing.

Continue reading “THERE ARE GOOD REASONS I KEEP STICKING WITH NITA” →

In my newest novel, What’s Left, the common image of a nuclear family is punctured when her father vanishes in an avalanche halfway around the globe when she’s 11. Daddy’s no longer present in the family picture. Only her mother, two older brothers, and Cassia herself. (Plus her aunts, uncles, and close cousins, who completely alter the picture.)

Her obsession to rediscover him brings her face to face with much more than her loss.

Continue reading “WHERE’S DADDY?” →