Tug of the Wishbone, a novel, is newly published,
and categorized as women's fiction, literary fiction, psychological fiction, and contemporary fiction.
Although there are romances in the book, they are interludes, except in Part
III. Here is the synopsis:
Maureen doesn’t plan to
repeat the mistakes of her divorced parents. Her 1960's experiences are
presented alongside family leave-takings. When marriage seems imminent, the
leave-takings are with men. Maureen’s photography proves to be a more permanent
involvement. Eventually she struggles with depression and clings to her work
until that is with a man that she would readily date. Outside their magazine, she
defiantly exposes a large poultry farm while confronting her need for a
constant love relationship. With Minnesota settings, the book covers thirty years. Its comic
relief reflects that resource in Maureen.
The first review is in from Amy's Bookshelf Reviews: "Wonderful story!...Maureen is one of those characters that you root for, you cry for and laugh along with..."
I will be doing a reading of Tug of the Wishbone at Eat My Words Bookstore in Minneapolis on January 28, at 3:00 p.m. Click on the linked words for more information.
Tug of the Wishbone began as short stories. Five
were published in literary journals such as The South Dakota Review and Frigg.
I kept writing the short stories about Maureen and went from a collection to a
novel. In Part I, there is time between one chapter and another, as the
chapters concentrate on events. These were revised for continuity. I did not
want to elaborate on Maureen's childhood because the book is for adults and
Maureen's early years are overshadowed by adult issues. In Maureen's teenage
years, her personal story emerges with her independence.
Here is an excerpt from Part II.
“Your parents were
selfish,” was Milt’s opinion.
He had called the Wednesday
after the Lammerville weekend and, following Valerie’s advice, Maureen had him
over for lasagna.
“I haven’t had such a good
dinner for weeks,” he complimented her and then they walked from her duplex to
a bench at Como Lake.
Wondering about his
mother’s cooking, Maureen said that she started cooking Italian food in junior
high when her mother worked evenings at the library.
“Your parents had four
children?” he asked.
“I have a sister and two
brothers. I’m the youngest. My brothers were pretty much gone when I was
cooking.”
Then Milt appraised her
parents as selfish. That stymied her as if he had netted something from the
depths of the lake. No one had ever said this and for the moment, he was a
hero.
“Of course many adults are
selfish. Me, for instance,” Milt laughed.
That made him more valiant.
Maureen settled back against his arm and said, “Do you think that people should
stay together for the sake of their children?”
Milt’s eyes glinted like
the lake. “If everyone made what you did out of a bad situation, this would be
a better world. But you couldn’t say it was a good situation, could you?”
Maureen wanted to sit
indefinitely in Milt’s good opinion. But he might be the illusion that the city
lake was to a swimmer. “If the world’s so bad, then why do you keep traveling
in it?” she asked.
“To shake a pattern, I
guess, and to form another pattern. Researchers have found that it’s all about
patterns. What should I do? Go to medical school? Or enter a graduate program
so that I can get paid to talk? So I try to get published, having the gift of
gab like my father, afraid of the pattern.”
She didn’t mind being
adrift with him, without a definite destination. If Milt made commitments here,
he would soon be as confined as a lake within a public park.
“I had insomnia in
childhood,” Maureen mentioned. “Does that mean a child of mine would have
insomnia?” She was still losing sleep
because of him.
“My father would probably
give you a pill and regret it later. He’s not the best doctor around, you know.
But the question is, what would you do if your child had insomnia and you
hadn’t solved yours?”
“My parents didn’t know
what to do because they weren’t insomniacs. So do the researchers only talk to
people in patterns or do they find people who broke the pattern? Like the
teetotaler whose father was an alcoholic?
Or the guy whose father beat him up learning restraint?”
“The uncharted,” Milt said
in a pleased, older voice. “That’s the goal, breaking a bad pattern. I’ll bet
you’ve never met a researcher. I knew there was a reason why I kept calling
you.”
She wasn’t configured in
the patterns he was in. “I might get divorced like my parents.”
“So they say. So they say.”
“I’d wonder about you but I
guess that’s nothing to worry over.”
“Too bad I don’t know.”
Milt scratched her thigh. Then he admitted that his attempt to get published in
the Christian Science Monitor
was out of rebelliousness. “I wanted to
see my father’s face if The Monitor
published me. He’s a hard man to see sometimes. It was the article about my
train trip in Russia. But I was interested in the common cold and that got me
wondering about a country having a national disease in the same way they have
literature. The Monitor doesn’t
like the word disease. The Soviet Union has good doctors but they tried to
treat the sick or wrong thing about their society with Communism. That broke
other patterns, like their pattern of publishing great novelists.”
“That’s like saying that
Germany is manic-depressive. They make toys and had a mania for music. But
their photography is severe and depressing when they aren't an impoverished
nation.”
Milt
laughed at that and then he asked Maureen to go on a trip with him.
Tug of the Wishbone is now available at Amazon in
both print and Kindle and at Barnes & Noble as a paperback. In February,
the paperback will be available from Ingram's and other outlets. Its stunning cover was designed by Bradley Wind.
