New to the story? Start from the Foreword.)
(My essays are available at Barr’d For Life.)
One of the great surprises of recording The Boat at the End of Lover’s Lane was realizing how many people listen to the books. I use these first four books as tools to help me learn to write better. Publishing on Substack has helped me to edit myself better, as has listening and recording the works. However, more people listen to the chapters than read them.
Which is great. I will take an audience where ever it is.
I will re-record all of the works now and publish them in their own podcasts. Derrymore comes almost immediately Lover’s Lane.
Every writer (I read) writes four bad novels at the beginning and these are mine. Derrymore is a novel, in the sense that it has multiple plots, a detailed world, and a theme that wraps itself through the plot. I have been experimenting with writing much more direct works that are better for the digital moment. When I was twenty five, The Fire onm Derrymore Road was the work I wanted to write. Now that I am sixty and am aware that my novels will not appear in airports, the form of this work is a little out of date. However, it may work better as a spoken text. I am hoping so.
If you enjoy listening, please like, restack, and comment. If you feel particularly moved, you can subscribe for free or you can send me some money. Feedback, on substack, comes rarely, but I enjoy having comments, even if they take me to task for grammar or pronoun reference errors.
“Polpis Road” picks up almost three months after “Derrymore.” (The previous novel isn’t necessary, but it might be helpful.)
In The Girl Who Ran The Polpis Road, three wounded and hurt children get revenge on the rich people who killed their families.
The Johns-Manville corporation made products with asbestos. The board knew that asbestos was poisonous for years, however little details shouldn’t stop progress. In Manville New Jersey, the asbestos fell like snow. Thousands died of cancer, including the parents of Simon, Frances, and Athena. Over the years, the three slowly extract all of the wealth from the former board members, and then they kill them.
The last connection to the old board summers on Nantucket. The three survivors take aim and slowly begin their plan.
A new young man has come to the island; Elvis. He weighs three hundred pounds, stands well over six feet, and arrives with a very sick father. He meets an athletic young woman, named Dionis, and they begin a romance.
Their love story entwines with the plan for revenge until both come to a final conclusion on a Saturday in June, at the Sankaty Club.
the prom was a reprieve. The Great Engine continues to churn.
My polished work is on a new website…. The blog has the “One Good Thing” essays,
Come to Coffin’s Nantucket…click on the picture for all of my writing
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