Moral Inventory

Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth thought she had been doing a decent job of navigating through the obstacles life had put in her path, when the day finally arrived that it all came to a screeching halt. With the simple words 'we are going to see a family counselor' announced by her mother, Elizabeth felt she had nothing to fear. Her confidence in her manipulation skills had her convinced that she would be back in the arms of her druggie boyfriend by noon. Underestimating her mother’s determination, Elizabeth would soon realize that escape would not come so easily. Forced to expose her mother’s alcoholism, her own drug abuse, and her sense of feeling abandoned since her father’s death, Elizabeth was faced with a reality that she had fought so hard to avoid.

Goodbye Chomsky, and Other Essays on Language

The idea of this book is that language is too interesting to be enjoyed exclusively by linguists. This is undoubtedly unfair to linguists—not people who speak several languages but academic linguists (for whom linguistics is the scientific study of language). Though this book is informed by linguistics, it is not a linguistics book, rather a language-not-linguistics book. It is a book about topics involving language that interest me and that I hope will be interesting to the intellectually curious reader. Its topics include J.R.R. Tolkien’s languages of Middle-earth, invented and artificial languages, language and gender, dialects, American versus British (Noah Webster), the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis, African-American vernacular English, the history of English, English as the world’s language, language death, the rebirth of Hebrew in Israel, the Yiddish language, language in India, language and nationalism, DNA and the origins of language, the dilemma of the postcolonial writer, and more.

Family Illness

Family Illness is a realistic fictional piece of work written to give mature readers a sense of what it is like for someone to grow up afflicted with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Steve, the main character, suffers as a child in the 1980s, growing up in a secular Jewish household. He has lots of physical and verbal tics while in school but lives in fear that his secret living with a mental illness in a hostile world will be revealed. As Steve grows up into a young adult, his illness plays tricks on him, making him question every moral aspect of his life. His fears intensify at the same time as he learns that a family member has OCD as well. This encourages Steve to fight back, but he wonders if he has lost too much of his life to the disease.

All Told

Imagine being an “other woman”, and then finding out that you’re not the only one. There have been many other women, before you and even standing alongside you right now. Jack learned early that one is never enough. Each chapter tells the experience of someone affected by Jack’s trysts. Some of the women are married, some single, some divorced. The ages vary as Jack grows older. Then the reach goes further, to the ripple effect of hurt caused by infidelity. There is an adult son Jack never knew he fathered. There’s also a bartender on the cusp of meeting the woman of his dreams, only to have Jack whisk her away by saying just the right thing. And there is a doctor who is shocked by Jack’s abandonment of her patient, one of the ‘other women’ with breast cancer. There are the first two wives, who run into each other thirty years after the first was replaced by the second. And there is the third wife, who is still married to Jack. Jack’s mother also speaks, at the beginning and the end. All Told tells more than the story of infidelity. It goes beyond the typical triangle of husband, wife, and lover. As the stories grow and involvements become more interconnected and convoluted, the question of who is cheating on who and why becomes more difficult to answer. Each chapter reveals another secret. But every secret has two sides, and in some cases, even more than that.

Yellow Brick Road

Eight-year-old Nika candidly tells the story of her life growing up in a Caribbean ghetto in the eighties. Nika is unintentionally funny, unbelievably clever, and kicks butt when she needs to. Nika’s dilemma is simple. She wants to exist without torture but life in the ghetto makes this an unrealistic desire.

Being the twelfth child of fifteen, Nika finds a way to get the attention she needs. Her cute, little black face sheds light on the woes of a Caribbean ghetto. Despite abject poverty, violence, and physical abuse, Nika maintains a hopeful demeanor that is far too mature for her age. She stands up to bullies, outsmarts sexual predators, and puts an end to her desire to cheat and steal.

After her most horrific experience, Nika finds a diary of a visitor to her Caribbean island that tells the story of Meredith. Meredith is a successful criminal defense lawyer with many burdens, struggles, and secrets. Will Meredith’s heart-rending story help Nika uncover the “happily-ever-after” in the ghetto? Or will the ghetto destroy Nika’s resilient spirit? 

Yearning

At thirty, Robert Markel can manage, at best, an ironic relationship with himself. He is a successful drama critic who had once hoped to create powerful original work for the theater. As the novel opens, he stares at himself in the mirror and suppresses an impulse to strike the sneering face that confronts him. His frustrations lead him to commit a serious breach of professional ethics. The narrative ranges from an early childhood accident through his mother’s terminal cancer when the boy is twelve, and on to his idealistic, awkwardly fervent teenage years.

The first phase of the book culminates in his decision to carve out a new identity for himself, to depart radically from what his father had always expected of him. A chance encounter with his future wife is followed by a sad reconciliation with his father, who has begun to suffer from a wasting neuromuscular disease. After his father’s death, Robert’s professional and emotional life begins to unravel.

Yearning for fulfillment through art and love, consumed by the drive to create something where nothing had existed before, Robert tries repeatedly to fill the void left by an emotionally absent mother and a father who failed to provide unconditional love beyond his earliest years.

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.

White's Novel

White’s tale is about most of us: we come and go from the world without really, at any stage, trying to affect or change it, despite dreaming of what we would do if we had the chance. White has that chance. White’s Novel is about what happens as a result of him taking that chance. And, in the end, is he really so very different than the rest of us? He thinks he is!

When the Stars Aligned

On a fate-laced evening at 7:30 pm, the three cornerstone figures in Malita’s life found her crossing their minds, yet none were present to shield her from Bruce’s malevolent grasp. Amidst grappling with the void left by her father’s absence, Malita’s world plunges into a deeper abyss when a supposed guardian from her family cruelly betrays her trust. This grave violation leaves her wrestling with shame, betrayal, and a tenuous relationship with her mother, all while battling against the engulfing tides of self-pity.

But Malita, with a spirit unyielding, musters the bravery to face the harsh truth of her fractured family and rejects the dark labels it threatens to affix on her. Embarking on a piecemeal journey, she strives to restore the shards of her destiny. In her quest for healing, the realms of forgiveness and purpose unfold before her, offering a glimpse of hope amidst despair. Malita chooses not merely to exist in the shadows of her past, but to seize the full essence of life’s offerings, demonstrating a resilient pursuit of healing and reclaiming her rightful place in the world. When the Stars Aligned isn’t just a narrative of survival, but a profound testament to the indomitable spirit of recovery and self-redemption.

Welcome to Welby Island

Welcome to Welby Island is a story that revolves around five troubled people from Los Angeles who come from different walks of life but will soon be traveling down the same path to enlightenment. That is, if they can survive twelve weeks on Welby Island at the hands of world renowned life coaches Micah and Blair Claine.

When they arrive via seaplane to the uninhabited island off the coast of Washington State, they are none too happy. After a fifteen-minute walk up the beach and through the woods, they emerge to the sight of a rundown cabin that in no way resembles the large sprawling beach house from the Claine Enlightenment Retreat brochure.

It doesn’t take long for the life coaching gurus to realize that these feisty five are not buying what they are selling.
Knowing that they are each carrying burdens that are clinging to them like seaweed, the five guests of Welby Island have to figure out how to get along and survive twelve weeks in a shack on a deserted island.

Welcome to Welby Island is a witty, sassy, humorous and emotional journey that will take you along on the road to enlightenment. 

Vet-Onation

Specialist Lauren Mayer is an Army Broadcast Journalist who sets out on a life-changing adventure upon joining the military. Against her better judgment, she falls for a Navy sailor named Davin Hendrix. Davin’s Navy obligations and Lauren’s impending deployment to the war-torn country of Iraq soon separate them. Devoted to each other, Lauren and Davin struggle through a long-distance relationship, which falters at times. This uncertainty, along with the psychological impact of a Military Sexual Trauma, pushes Lauren into the arms of a comrade. Lauren soon has a number of secrets to keep from Davin as they attempt to restore their relationship. She struggles to adjust to many aspects of her life post-deployment. When Davin selects an assignment in proximity to Lauren’s assaulter, she follows—out of love—despite her mental turmoil and fear. The result is a self-inflicted implosion of her life. Her military service, her assault, and her tumultuous relationship with the love of her life are all tests of her fortitude and will to overcome.

Undertow

Red grows up in the rarefied world of a privileged Manhattan childhood: a world of uniformed doormen, private schools, and elegant townhouses. This is also the world of the 1960s, when societal conflicts are disrupting previously accepted patterns of American life.

As author John F. Reinus reveals through richly detailed observation, there’s a powerful current beneath the surface, and the presumed advantages of his birthright come at a heavy cost, one that is amplified by the sorrow of an unacknowledged love.

The author weaves a tapestry of minute details, as seen in Red’s journey from childhood to adulthood, inviting us to compare what’s on the surface of our own lives to the hidden forces that shape us.