Windwhistle Bone

Richard Trainor's Windwhistle Bone is a novel of time and place as we follow the protagonist, Ram Le Doir, on a journey tracing his rise as a celebrated poet and reporter, which comes to a tragic conclusion as he is unlocking a series of dangerous stories that nearly costs him his life, and destroys his marriage and career. Ram's fall and eventual redemption concern the double murder of his wife, actress Vera Dubeck, and her lover. Trainor's prose was cited by the late Luther Nichols, Doubleday's former West Coast Bureau Chief, as "reminiscent of Faulkner (the Snopes-like nature of the Le Doirs), Thomas Wolfe, J. P. Dunleavy (the scapegrace of Ram), Dylan Thomas, and Bukowski. There's a great California feel to your novel which is one of the finest first novels I have ever read." Nichols gave testimony for Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Books during the obscenity trial held over Allen Ginsburg's poem, Howl, in 1960.

Richard Trainor began writing Windwhistle Bone at the start of his publishing career in the early 1980s. Trainor has published four non-fiction books and over 100 feature stories for national and international publications including The Sacramento Bee, The Los Angeles Times, Elle, American Film, and Sight & Sound. Trainor is now working on the second volume of his California trilogy, the prequel of Windwhistle Bone, titled Fran's Nocturne; a collection of short stories, Valley Fever and Other Stories; and a new non-fiction book titled Final Say.