Robert Raymer's Blog, page 28

Dying Alone in a Far Away Land

Back in 2009 I blogged an excerpt of "Dying Alone in Far Away Land" from Tropical Affairs Episodes of an Expat's life in Malaysia (MPH 2009) and I got several comments and also enquiries via my website email from those who new Bill McVeigh and been to his house located behind Casuarina Hotel (now Hard Rock Hotel) in Penang, Malaysia.  So I thought I would publish the full article for the benefit of others outside of Malaysia, who while staying at the Casuarina Hotel back in the 70's, 80's and early 90's, may have visited him and his mélange of animals, or glimpsed him walking to and fro on the beach with his dog or one of his otters, or had heard about him and are curious.


DYING ALONE IN A FAR AWAY LAND
Whenever I see an abandoned house in Malaysia, I often wonder if the former occupant was an expat like me, and did he die alone?  Was he forgotten?  This is a fear that many expats have – dying alone in some far-flung country.  But then I met a man who did just that ten years ago (now 16 years): Bill McVeigh.           
When he was alive, thousands of tourists would walk past his house in Batu Ferringhi without even knowing they were walking past a house.  Even if they looked beyond the stalls offering souvenirs and fake watches, they would be hard pressed to make out a house sequestered behind a wall of trees and shrubbery (on all sides) that sealed off Bill McVeigh from the rest of the world.              
On several occasions, I had heard about McVeigh, this modern-day recluse and his mélange of exotic animals, including otters, golden gibbons, and a hornbill, who lived in direct defiance to the hotels that had squeezed in around him.  It was said that when he took walks along the beach, his two otters would follow him.  When a friend of ours was visiting from Holland in November 1988, she bumped into him.  I knew I had to seek him out and meet him for myself.


Although his house was next to the Casuarina Hotel, finding an entrance among the shrub­bery was difficult, so I went around back and eventually found an opening.  The house was the size of a small cottage and looked unlivable – doors were off their hinges, windows were broken, and large parts of the roof had collapsed inside.  Debris lay every­where inside.  Yet as I glimpsed through the broken bars of two moon windows, a sem­blance of a home emerged – scattered furni­ture, framed pictures, and book­shelves full of books and maga­zines.  I knocked on the front door and called out, "Hello?"            
Drawn to a large cage with a beautiful golden gibbon, I ventured around to have a look.  The double doors to the servants' portion of the house were missing.  Thinking there had to be a beach access, I circled around to the other side, where there were more cages, although each was empty.  Feeling uncom­fort­able at trespassing, I made my way to the back gate, past an old dona­tion box for tourists (often guests of The Casuarina Hotel) who wished to view his animals.             
While walking along the beach, I saw a scruffy westerner with a fisher­­man's air about him.  His white beard was short and patchy and his top teeth were missing save for a few stumps, as if someone had bashed them in; his lower teeth were intact.  He was walk­ing at a fast clip with a large black dog that struggled to keep pace.  I stopped and asked him if he owned the house by the Casuarina Hotel.            
"No," he replied, "but I've live there – if you can call it a house."  He then looked at me curiously for awhile.  "You're Robert."            
Taken aback that he knew my name, I looked at him—amazed.  He said he recognized my face from The Star newspaper; two weeks earlier, they had featured me for win­ning third prize in a short story contest.  Having read my story, "The Future Barrister" he began to compare my writing to that of Paul Theroux.  Then he criticized Theroux for all of the "foolish errors he had made about Malaysia" in his book, The Consul's File.             
As he spoke, he looked sideways, occasionally glancing at me.  He talked like he had been shut away for years.  I gladly listened, yet also wondered, was he mad?  Far from it, he was lucid and extremely well-read.  As we stood there on the beach, he talked for an hour straight on topics ranging from pythons to the Loch Ness monster.  A pragma­tist, he looked to refute Nessie through careful under­standing, observations, and explana­tions.  Never once did he dismiss something offhandedly; he backed up his opinions by citing books that he bought from the second hand bookstalls along Macalister Road (later shifted to Chowrasta Market).              
I asked about his otters.  Years back, I saw one­ creeping along the beach.  The otter then ran up to a startled tourist and rubbed against the man like a cat.  Everyone, including me, was amused.  But not all hotel guests liked the idea of sharing the beach—let alone the hotel pool—with an otter and complaints were made.  McVeigh told me one of his otters had been caught and killed.  Later, the other suffered the same fate.
Five years later in 1993, while staying at the Pacific Bayview, I happened to look out the window and saw hidden among the trees, Bill McVeigh's house.  I wondered, was he still alive?  As I approached the house carry­ing my son Zaini, who was less than two at the time, I had my doubts.  The place looked more decrepit than before, as if no one had lived there for years, if not decades.  Standing in a partial clearing by the side entrance, I called out Bill's name.  Not one but two dogs sounded the alarm.  Both came charging.  Knowing that dogs smelled fear, I held my ground.  For Zaini's sake, I tried to remain calm.  The lead dog's head came up to my waist, to Zaini's legs, yet Zaini didn't cringe nor did he cry out, even when the dog had a good sniff—first me, then him.              
Moments later, Bill appeared.  He couldn't see us, so I called out again.  He bent down and made us out through the underbrush.  Bare-chested with a sarong around his waist, he invited us to come around to the front of the house.  The golden gibbon that was supposed to be in the cage was gone—he had let it out a couple of weeks ago to have a run around.  He expected it to come back.  He assumed I was staying at Casuarina Hotel, where guests some­times visited and brought him food or gave him money—he had been living on charity for years.  When I told him that I met him five years ago, he racked his brains and asked, "Are you the short-story writer?"            
He then talked about other writers, again in a rapid-fire one-sided conver­sa­tion.  Meanwhile I jostled Zaini back and forth between one knee and the other, now and then offering him his bottle or swatting away mosquitoes.  The mosquitoes, which thrived on his property, didn't seem to bother McVeigh.             
"Occa­sion­ally I forget," he said, as he watched me swat away yet another mosquito from Zaini.  He went inside and was quick to offer some spray for our legs and a mosquito coil.  He later joked about the young tourists who wanted to venture into the jungle but couldn't last a half hour on his front porch.  He had a good laugh over this.             
He also had a good laugh over "the hippies" back in the 60's and 70's.  He told me some expats visited him, including one on a Harley Davidson, but who knew practically nothing about motorcycles.            
"It was all for show," he said.  When I mentioned that I knew one of the gentlemen he was referring to, he said, "Don't tell him you know me!"             
Although I wished I could stay longer with him, Zaini was getting restless; it was so steaming hot in McVeigh's makeshift jungle that sweat poured off my son.
Six months later, I took my friend Anni ("Farewell to a Tango Dancer") to see Bill and brought him a copy of my recently published collection of my short stories set in Malaysia, Lovers and Strangers (Heinemann Asia,1993, later republished as Lovers and Strangers Revisited, MPH 2008).  Going to his house was always creepy; you didn't know what you were going to find, including finding him dead.  Bill was still there, and alive, but barely.  He told us he almost died from the cancer that was clear­ly growing out of his left ear.  

He talked for nearly three hours as we sat on his porch and listened.  Never in any of my visits had he invited me inside the house, no doubt ashamed of how it looked.  I had heard from a friend—the former "hippy" that we both knew—that he kept snakes there, including a python.  When the friend had asked to see the python, it took Bill a long time to return to the porch.  "I had to disentangle them all," he had said.            
It was hard to imagine that anyone could live in that house— and with all those snakes too, and god knows what all else.  But I refused to pass judgment on him.  He had made up his mind long ago that this was where he was going to die.  Until then, he just made the most of it.            
The few bits and pieces of information that I had gleaned from him about his personal life was that he was English, born in China where his father might have been a diplomat, and that he grew up in Australia.  During the war he was in Burma, and then he came to Malaya in 1949 and fought the communists throughout the Emergency (1948-1960).  He lived awhile in Johor where he raised crocodiles.  In Penang he traded in animals: cats to Europe for lab testing (before it was banned) and more exotic species to zoos.  He grew a beard because he used to be a diver; he had what divers called 'blue chin'.            
"Every time I shaved, I would scrape off all the skin," he said.  "All divers back then grew beards—it saved their faces."             
There was so much more I wanted to know about him, but Bill McVeigh was not a man you could ask questions to—he rarely gave me a chance to speak.  If you were with him, your role was to listen and let him talk about whatever he wanted to talk about.  And enjoy the ride.
Three months later in April 1994, Anni called me.  She said all the shrubbery around Bill McVeigh's house had been cleared by a bulldozer.  The cages where the gibbons and the hornbill had lived were gone too.  I dropped whatever I was writing and met with Anni.  Everything was cleared out of the house, save a few magazines scattered on the red tile floor, including an issue of Manor Houses, June 17, 1965, and a large, moldy, green leather steamer trunk.  Curious, I opened the trunk and a large gecko jumped out and landed on my jeans, startling me.  The joke was clearly on me; I could almost hear Bill McVeigh laughing.  Anni sure did.             
From the staff at the Casuarina Hotel, I found out that Bill had died of cancer.  They hadn't seen him walking his dog for three days, so they checked on him and found him dead in the bathroom.            
I never knew what brought Bill McVeigh to Penang, other than he came with his sister.  One thing I did know, he lived a lot, read a lot, and laughed a lot, particular­ly at the foolishness of expatriates who think they know more about Malaysia than they do.  Myself included.            
Of course, Bill McVeigh didn't actually die alone—he had his animals, including his snakes.  Nor was he forgot­ten either.  Anni had painstakingly restored the trunk back to its original condition.  Whenever I visited her, I would marvel over how great it looked and we'd reminisce about him and his house.  His spirit also stayed alive in my journals, in my mem­ories, and in my writing the original article about him, inside my book Tropical Affairs, Episodes of an Expat's life in Malaysia (MPH 2009), and now this blog, twice.              
His house, by the way, survived, too, at least the foundation and some of the walls.  It had been converted into a bistro called Ferringhi Walk.  On the wall are framed photographs that I took of Bill McVeigh's house, taken a few days after he had died, after the land had been cleared.  I'll even donate a copy of this article, so the patrons can read about him.  Perhaps they'll raise a toast:  To Bill McVeigh, who lived and died in a far away land. 
—Robert Raymer, from Tropical Affairs: Episodes from an Expat's Life in Malaysia, Borneo Expat Writer
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Power of Five Your Way to Success- Quill Jan-Mar 2011

 

Beating a dead horse...or keeping it alive until it thrives...

Just came across this cool advertisement from Quill on the internet announcing the arrival of Lovers and Strangers Revisited back in 2008.  I was scratching my head, where did this come from?  Then I dug through some old copies of Quill and found it on the back page of their July-September issue!

This was the third time for publishing this book, and I remember, at the time, another publisher making a remark about another writer who was also republishing her book, "Is she still beating that dead horse?" Then I thought, well her book came out at around the same time as my book back in 1993, so this could very well apply to me.  Am I beating a dead horse?  But then it went on to win the 2009 The Star Popular Reader's Choice Award, and now it's looking like it'll soon be translated into French, so you just never know, do you?

So am I beating a dead horse...or keeping it alive until it thrives...

This is also why I kept revising my short stories, over and over, and why so many from this collection have been published, some twenty years after they were written!  And why I keep revising my novels, The Boy Who Shot Santa, 16 times, The Lonely Affair of Jonathan Brady, 22, and Tropical Affairs, 14, because you just never know...how close you are to succeeding, to finally getting the novel just right.

I do this every year when a new round of novel contests come up and I think, well it's been a year (or sometimes several years have passed by).  Let's take a look, and right away I find better ways of saying something, or how if I did a little rearranging, a little tweaking here and there, and what if I did this or that, or added something to chapter....Then once again I plunge myself back into a novel for yet another rewrite, which I just did in December, as an investment and a vote of confidence for Janaury and 2011.  I'm so glad I did.  I wasn't planning on it either other than a cursory glance, but instead, I spend a month overhauling it.

Writing is basically rewriting, and everytime I rewrite something, I'm thinking, hey, it's coming alive.  I thought it was finally dead this time, but it's really coming alive, and that gives me hope for the New Year.  And hope is a good thing for a writer.  Hope is a good thing for everyone.  Imagine a life where you have no hope...
                                         -Robert Raymer, Borneo Expat Writer

The Novel Project and Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

 I spent most of December rewriting my novel The Boy Who Shot Santa (formerly A Season for Fools) to get it ready for the upcoming 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.  The winner gets a publishing contract with Penguin USA and $15,000 advance, plus distribution on Amazon.  They need a 300-word pitch, a 3000-5000 excerpt (I'm sending 4000), and the full novel.  
First round is purely on the pitch—if that doesn't grab people's attention, you're out.  80% of the competition will be eliminated.  This is also true for agents/publishers, though it's more like 90-95% are eliminated!  If they're not interested in the novel concept, or if you can't hook them with an interesting premise, they're not going to waste their time requesting a sample of your writing, let alone reading your entire novel.  They don't have the time, and too often these days, since they're inundated with dozens/hundreds of email queries each day, they're making snap judgments.  In less than a minute, you even grab them or they quickly hit delete and move onto the next one.
This is a harsh reality of the current publishing industry that we need to accept if we're going that route.  (Another route is e-publishing.) This is also something that Joel Roberts taught me: When the stakes are high and the time is short—it's all about the impact of your language.  Either you make an impact or you don't get the opportunities that you deserve.  
How the Contest WorksFirst Round (Jan. 24th- Feb 6): Amazon editors will review a 300-word Pitch of each entry. The top 1000 entries in each category (2000 total entries) will move on to the second round.Second Round (Feb. 24th): The field will be narrowed to 250 entries in each category (500 total entries) by Amazon top customer reviewers from ratings of a 5000 word excerpt.Quarterfinals (March 22nd): Publishers Weekly reviewers will read the full manuscript of each quarterfinalist, and based on their review scores, the top 50 in each category (100 total entries) will move on to the semi-finals.Semi-finals (April 26th): Penguin USA editors will read the full manuscript and review all accompanying data for each semi-finalist and will then select three finalists in each category (six total finalists).Finals (May 24th): Amazon customers will vote on the three finalists in each category resulting in two grand prize winners Grand prize winners will be announced (June 13th)
Here's my pitch, which I revised last night and will be revising several more times in the next couple of weeks.  Any helpful suggestions let me know, 300 words max:
The Boy Who Shot SantaWhat if your son accidentally shoots his dad dressed up as Santa Claus?
          Rachel Layton finds her fragile marriage to a redneck that got her pregnant during high school shattered when her eleven-year-old son kills a burglar who turns out to be his drunken father in a Santa Claus suit.  The shooting sets off a chain-reaction of events that threatens to tear apart a small Pennsylvania town.Cast as a villain by the media, Rachel is determined to hold her family together, even as her son gets beaten up at school, her teenage daughter moves in with a low life twice her age, and an old high school boyfriend comes and goes. Tired of being on the defensive and utilizing the voice of reason, Rachel speaks out against hunters buying their children guns or leaving them lying around for them to find.  Despite threatening phone calls and a brick through her window, Rachel refuses to back off until Gordon's Gunshop, located smack on Main Street, is shut down.          While shopping at the mall for Christmas, Rachel overlooks one important detail.  Santa Claus.  To her dismay, her son Eric, still struggling from post-traumatic stress disorder, gets into line behind the other kids.  Sensing trouble, parents try to drag their kids, kicking and screaming, out of the line.  Soon the whole town, it seems, is watching as Eric confronts Santa Claus.Still trying to come to terms with her deceased husband and hoping for one last chance for happiness, Rachel is all too aware that someone in the crowd is stalking her.  One thing is certain:  Christmas in Sharpton will never be the same.        The Boy Who Shot Santa (97,000 words) is a short-list finalist for the 2009 Faulkner-Wisdom novel contest (as A Season for Fools), and the first book of a potential three-book series.
                                                          -Robert Raymer, Borneo Expat Writer

Lovers and Strangers Revisited, off to a good start for 2011

Lovers and Strangers Revisited is off to a good start for 2011. The French publisher that's interested in translating the collection into French just contacted me after reading all seventeen stories and now they are about to undergo negotiations with MPH, the Malaysian publisher.  They are also interested in using the same cover, if they are able, too.  Since the French translation will make the book fatter by 10-20%, they may need to cut a story or two to keep it in the range of 220-240 pages.  My fingers are crossed!
Then last week, two days before the end of the year, The Writer (US) expressed an interest in publishing "On Friday: The Story Behind the Story"  http://thestorybehindthestoryoflsr.blogspot.com/ for their Writers at Work series for a two-page spread when an opening comes up.  I'll need to expand the original blog by adding some stuff that I left out, like how it was translated into Japanese by Plaza back in 1992, and how it's going to be translated into French (assuming everything goes according to plan), plus I need to tailor it more toward their Writers at Work series.  They sent me a sample. 

Spirit of Malaysia - a first look at the new cover

Here's the first look at Spirit of Malaysia, an Editions Didier Millet book that I was asked to write the text for, a state-by-state overview of modern Malaysia, a good learning experience for me and a pleasant opportunity to revisit all of Malaysia, if only from my computer and via stacks of guide and reference books, after living here for twenty-five years.  Amazing how much I learned, which is often the case with every book that you write.

The copyright holder of the series provided the photographs, and the layout was already done for me.  Just needed to come up with the text for each section and for the photos, too.  Sounds easy, but initially when writing this it gave me fits -- I was fighting it!  But then I found a way to break down each section, from the economy to transportation, from background history and heritage to diving sites and tourist resorts and just stuck with it.  The problem was always an overload of information from far too many sources and finding a way to distill it all down to a few paragraphs here and there.  Having a deadline and a signed contract helps!

The book will make a perfect gift for those wishing to know more about Malaysia, a happy balance between fascinating and well-chosen photographs (three or four per page) and just enough background information and depth to keep it interesting, without weighing you down.  At 80 pages, it's portable too, in a soft cover, so it's easy to slip into your luggage or backpack or mail overseas to your family and friends.

For advance orders you can go to Amazon. 

Finally, I'm on Amazon, if you don't count some old copies of Lovers and Strangers from the Heinemann Asia Writing Series(1993):  two used from $75.23 and one collectible (an autographed copy) from $49.95.

Let's share the Spirit of Malaysia with the world.[image error]

The rise of Maui Inner Circle…and the demise of Maui Writer's Conference

This is one of those good news, bad news scenarios.

The good news is that the Maui Inner Circle gets a mention as "notable authors" in Graham Brown's latest article, dated 12 November 2010. Eight of us met at the Maui Writer's Conference back in 2006, which I blogged about earlier this year, after three of us had published at least one book.  Of course the big breakout news then was Graham Brown's thriller Black Rain published in January 2010, followed up by his latest book Black Sun in August.  He has also recently signed with Random House for a third book in his series.  Way to go, Graham!



Now the pressure is on for the rest of us at Maui Inner Circle to do our part.  For me, my fingers are crossed for a French translation deal for Lovers and Strangers Revisited, my award-winning collection of short stories set in Malaysia.  I also have a new book coming out with Didier, Spirit of Malaysia.  Other than some publications in literary magazines by Eric Paul Shaffer, author of Burn & Learn, Drew Tollman is in post-production for the film Hop, coming out Easter 2011.  She's also starting to make deals for her pre-school show.  Her company is called Beach Plum Media and a web site is in the works. All the best, Drew!

The bad news is that the Maui Writer's Conference where we all met is no more.  After a run of 17 amazingly successful years, with its auspicious beginning documented by director John Tullius in Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul, the conference switched its name to Hawaii Writer's Conference and its location to Waikiki.  A victim of the downturn in the economy and poor ticket sales for a fundraising event headed by Nora Jones (along with some contractual disputes over the $50,000 that she was paid in guarantee money—there are two sides to this story, so let's not be too quick to blame her), the conference, unless it pulls a Lazarus, is sadly no more as reported by Lee Cataluna in the Honolulu Star Advertisers.

Our year at the Maui conference is notable not only for Bobby Moresco (Crash, Million Dollar Baby) and Ron Powers (Flags of Our Fathers) but also the West Maui Mountain fire (above).  Now the Maui Inner Circle is looking to set the world on fire with our writing!  Rather appropriate since Graham Brown is writing about the Mayans and its apocalyptic year 2012, with the tag line, "forget everything you think you know."

So forget everything you think you know about the Maui Inner Circle.  Our story is just getting started…wish us luck! And let's wish John Tullius some luck with his conference, too. Without it, we would never have met.[image error]

Lovers and Strangers Revisited, a French connection?

Looks like Lovers and Strangers Revisited might have a French connection.  A publisher in France with an interest in South East Asia has expressed an interest in translating Lovers and Strangers Revisited into French, after reading two of my stories, "Neighbours" from my website and "On Fridays" in Cha.  Nothing is official, but they just ordered two copies of the collection to explore that very possibility.  That's a good start.  Now they need to know the details of my contract with MPH so we can work out a solution, a win-win for all three of us.
Two of the stories from collection have already been published in France, though in English. "Sister's Room" was published in the French literary journal, Paris Transcontinental back in 1992 the year before Heinemann Asia brought out the original Lovers and Strangers in Singapore. 
[image error]Then in 2003, "On Fridays" was published in Frank as a joint publication with The Literary Review after Frank's editor, David Applefield was their guest editor for the Expat Writing issue.
Is this the start of my European period?  Last month Dr Rashidi, a friend who teaches Lovers and Strangers Revisited at USM here in Malaysia saw one of my short stories in Silverfish anthology at a German university, and then I was contacted from The Netherlands, when the Expatriate Archive Centre at The Hague requested a copy of Tropical Affairs: Episodes from an Expat's Life in Malaysia for their library.  And now France.

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The Novel Project: The first five pages of The Boy Who Shot Santa, pitch, and synopsis

THE BOY WHO SHOT SANTA
Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.-Edward Young (1684-1765)
1               
        Rachel Layton breathes in the aroma of baked chicken, buttered baked potato, and corn as she glances out the kitchen window.  She can barely make out the top of the Ever­­green Trailer Court sign arched over the entrance, decorated with blinking Christmas lights, several burned or busted out.  The lights only add to the gaudiness of Evergreen like a drunk foolishly drawing attention to himself.  Since the other trailers all have their Christ­mas decor­a­tions up and their trees lit, it made not having any feel worse, like watching another kid lick an ice-cream cone when your own parents are too strict or too stin­gy to buy you one.  And it's the day before Christmas. . . .She lets out a prolonged sigh for the seventeen years of lost battles over nearly every­thing related to Christ­mas, especially allowing a tree inside their trailer.          She notices Lyle and his shit-faced grin as he leans, arms crossed, against the refrigerator.  It's like he's mocking her.  Like he knows some­thing she doesn't and is rubbing it in.         "What?" Rachel asks, in no mood for any of his antics.  She and the children, Tara and Eric, sit down at the table.  Lyle continues to grin at her.  He winks at Eric and guzzles the beer and wipes his mouth on his flannel shirt as he sur­veys the food as if it's the furthest thing from his mind.  Reluctantly, he sits down at the table opposite of her.          Ignoring him, Rachel and the kids dig in.  In between bites, she glances at Lyle, fully aware why he isn't hungry.  He pigged out on the peanut-butter cookies about a half hour ago, after she had pointedly told him to wait until after dinner.  There's still cookie residue on his chin.  Evidence.  His hair, as usual, isn't combed, nor did he bother to wash his oily face.  The longer she looks at him, the more she despises his wide forehead, mis­chievous blue eyes, pointy nose, and jutting chin.        "You're not going to eat, are you?" she finally says, tired of him grinning at her like some simpleton.  Lyle didn't hate Christmas in the Scrooge humbug way; no, he just thought that it was all a bit farci­cal:  an old man in a white beard prancing around in a red suit, people haul­ing trees into their homes, strangers popping by to sing Christmas carols, and everyone wish­ing every­one else "Merry Christmas" as if they meant it, when he knew that hardly any­one, even within the same family, really gave a shit—at least not in Sharpton.  He wanted absolutely nothing to do with Christ­mas except, of course, receiving presents.  He isn't that stupid.  Some years, if he got around to it, he'd buy her a present, too, usually gags that weren't that funny, like last year's rubber chicken, or the black dildo.  At least Eric, who was four at the time, got a big kick out of the dildo even if­ he didn't have a clue what it was.  He just thought it looked funny when Rachel pulled it out of a family size box of Colgate tooth­paste, no doubt expecting toothpaste.  Or may­be he was laugh­ing at Tara's oh-my-god expression.  Being five years older than Eric, she knew exactly what it did resemble.  Since Christmas is less than a long day way, Rachel can't help but wonder what Lyle got her this year.  Knowing it's not going to be mean­ing­­ful or anything she can use or wear, she prefers nothing at all.        She glances at the time and the telephone rings, right on cue.  Rachel grabs Tara and Eric, stopping them from getting up.        Lyle takes another gulp of beer and squares his shoulders.  "Why look at me?"        "Only you get calls during meal times."        "My friends eat at odd times—that's all."        "You mean drink," Rachel replies, "and they drink all the time."        Lyle takes the beer with him as he gets up from the table, no doubt glad for an excuse to get away.  He glances at Mr. Potato Head who's looking down at them all from his perch on top of the refrigerator with an air of superiority matched only by Lyle himself.        "Keep an eye on them until I get back."        "Talking to your toy again?" Rachel asks.  Mr. Potato Head not only belongs to Lyle but also resembles him, par­ti­cu­larly the limited facial expressions.        "At least Mr. Potato Head doesn't talk back like some people I know," Lyle says, and turns the corner before Rachel has time to respond.  He continues past the mahogany gun cabinet containing several well-oiled rifles and shotguns to the yard-sale-bought and chipped desk where the telephone is located and the presents that Rachel bought for Lyle and the children waiting to be opened.  The ringing stops as Lyle finally answers the phone.          Rachel turns to her eleven-year-old son Eric, who's eyeing her as if she has just com­mitted a crime by crossing words with his father.        "Eat up while it's hot," she says.        "I'm eating," Eric replies, his mouth full of chicken.        "Don't talk with your mouth full," Rachel says, sounding so much like her mother it scares her.  She glances at Tara, whose head is cocked to one side as she fingers her shoulder-length reddish blond hair.  At sixteen, Tara looks a lot older than she is.  For Rachel that means trouble.  She already lost her virginity the year before, the only thing that Tara and she seem to have in common, other than Lyle.        Tara had no say in that matter.  Rachel, most assuredly and regretta­bly, did.        Noticing that Tara is still looking at her, she asks, "What are you looking at?"        Tara rolls her turquoise eyes—eyes that remind Rachel far too much and far too often of her dad.  Not only the way she rolls them but how they fail to see the world beyond the limita­tions of Sharpton, Pennsyl­vania.  For that matter, Tara's whole damn dimpled-cheeks, thin-nosed, hawkish face is Lyle through and through.  At least Tara keeps her hair neatly combed.  Lyle would rather die than comb his hair, which he only does first thing in the morning or after showering—some­thing else he keeps to a minimum.        Rachel sighs in defeat and glances up at Mr. Potato Head.  "What are you looking at?"  Like Tara, it doesn't bother to reply.          "Told you it'd happen again," Lyle says, returning to the table, a cockiness to his gait from never being wrong despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  "Someone busted out Sam Taylor's window and broke in.  Took all their presents.  Even swiped some ornaments off the tree!"        "Who would do such a mean thing?" Rachel asks, and lays down her fork in protest.  The Taylor's trailer is just around the bend, not far from theirs.        Reclaiming his seat, Lyle glances at the food as though wishing he'd already eaten it.         "That's the second one this month.  Told you it was going to happen again, didn't I?"  He grins smugly to let his genius sink in.  "Let 'em try that here and I'll shoot their ass."        "Shoot first, ask questions later," Eric pipes in, and drinks some milk.        "Got that straight."  Lyle aims his index finger at Eric like a pistol.  "Pow!"  He blows away the imaginary smoke and winks at Eric.        "We should give Sarah something to help out," Rachel says.  "How does fifty sound?"        Lyle picks up the beer bottle by the neck and strangles the idea. "Fifty is a lot of money."        "Just means you got to cut down your drinking and eat more."  She picks up her fork as if to show him how.        "Twenty sounds better," Lyle says, leaving the fork where it is.        "Twenty is barely going to buy a decent present.  She's got three teenagers."        "That Connie's working over at The Diner, so they're not hurting none."        "With Sam drinking away the pay, she doesn't have much of a choice, now does she?"         Lyle doesn't reply; Sam's drinking is a touchy subject since he's one of Lyle's drinking buddies.  Lyle finishes the beer, gets up and grabs another bottle from the fridge.        In protest, Rachel adds, "Maybe I'll also give them one of our pies."          "Not the apple pie," Lyle says, eyeing her, as he sits down again.                 "Only thinking of yourself.  Like always."        "I happen to like apple pie.  You too, right, Eric?"        "Me too," Eric replies.  He drinks more milk.        "I can bake another."  Rachel looks from Lyle to Eric.  "Eat your potatoes."        Lyle stretches out his arms in a manic pose and says, "Not in front of Mr. Potato Head, please!"        Eric sprays milk from his nose and mouth as he cracks up laughing.        "You're so disgusting," Tara says, still fingering her hair.        "Clean that up now!" Rachel says.        "Didn't do it on purpose!"  Eric says.  He sops up the mess with a paper towel.
                                                                                   *  *  *The Boy Who Shot SantaWhat if your son accidentally kills his dad dressed up as Santa Claus?
The Boy Who Shot Santa (96,000 words), a short-list finalist for the 2009 Faulkner-Wisdom novel contest (as A Season for Fools), is the first of a potential three-book series.
         While struggling to survive a loveless marriage for the sake of her two children, Rachel Layton finds her fragile world torn apart when her eleven-year-old son kills a burglar who turns out to be his drunken father in a Santa Claus suit.  The shooting sets off a chain-reaction of events that threatens to tear apart a small Pennsylvania town.          Cast as a villain by the media, Rachel is determined to hold her family together, even as her son gets beaten up in school and her teenage daughter moves in with a low life twice her age.  Tired of being on the defensive, Rachel speaks out against hunters buying their children guns or leaving them lying around for them to find.  Despite threatening phone calls and a brick through her window, Rachel refuses to back off until Gordon's Gunshop on Main Street is shut down.          While shopping at the mall for Christmas, Rachel overlooks one important detail.  Santa Claus.  To her dismay, her son gets into line behind the other kids.  Sensing trouble, parents start to pull their children out of the line.  Soon the whole town is watching as her son confronts Santa Claus.  Still trying to come to terms with her deceased husband, Rachel is all too aware that someone in the crowd is stalking her.  One thing is certain:  Christmas in Sharpton will never be the same.
THE BOY WHO SHOT SANTA                  Synopsis, Novel 96,000 words            Rachel's 11-year-old son accidentally shoots his drunken father dressed as Santa Claus – setting off a chain-reaction of events that threatens to tear apart a small Pennsylvanian town.
          The day before Christmas, Rachel has a spat with her husband Lyle over the rifle that he bought for their eleven-year-old son, Eric.  While teaching Eric how to shoot the rifle, Lyle passes along valuable tips about being caught in a life threatening situation in light of recent break-ins at their trailer court, including his friend, Sam Taylor.  While Rachel is visiting a friend, Lyle sneaks out to have a beer.  But first he puts Eric in charge with explicit instruc­tions to shoot first and ask questions later.  At Roadkill, Lyle nearly gets into a fight with Deek Jack­son, a low life his age who is secretly seeing his sixteen-year-old daughter, Tara.  As a joke, Lyle borrows a Santa Claus suit.  Eric, thinking he's a burglar, shoots him.          Reporters, demanding to know how Rachel can raise a child to kill Santa Claus, flock to her trailer.  Forced to make a statement, she accidentally lets out that Lyle dislikes Christ­mas.  After Lyle's funeral, the press antagonizes Eric into making a sensational comment about his hating Santa Claus.  Tara also admits to Rachel that she's sleeping with Deek Jackson.          When school reopens, troublemakers goad Eric into a fight and he gets beaten up, while his best friend Duncan Hayes only watches.  Rachel is forced to find a job as a waitress at The Diner, where she works with Sam Taylor's teenage daughter, Connie.  Tara quits school to move in with Deek Jackson.  Finding the receipt for Eric's rifle, Rachel pays a visit to Gordon's Gunshop.  Later, she runs into Dale Hocker, Eric's principal and an old boy­friend.  They start to date again.          A drunken Sam Taylor beats up his daughter Connie.  Rachel discovers that she is pregnant with Lyle's baby.  Dale abruptly ends their relation­ship.  On the last day of school, Eric is attacked by a group of boys and is hospitalized.  Feel­ing desperate, Rachel calls her estranged father, who agrees to help take care of Eric.          An elderly friend convinces Rachel to speak out against hunters' careless habit of leaving guns lying around for their children to find.  During Rachel's talk, she's heckled by Bert Hayes (Duncan's father), Deek Jack­son, and Gordon Damby, owner of Gordon's Gunshop.  A drunken Sam Taylor kills a family of five in a car accident.  Barely alive, he blames Rachel and makes wild accusations that she's a witch.  A brick with a bullet taped to it is thrown through Rachel's window.  Suspect­ing Gordon Damby, Rachel leads a protest outside Gordon's Gunshop.  Rachel confronts Eric about fighting and skipping school, only to learn that kids at school are calling her a witch and a whore for sleeping with their principal.          Wanting to put a stop to all this, Rachel confronts Eric's principal, Dale Hocker.  During a heated argument, Rachel goes into labor.  Dale not only delivers the baby, but also, after 18 years, finally proposes to her.  Rachel's not so sure this is a good idea.          Bert Hayes forces his son Duncan to go hunting and Duncan shoots him in the back.  With the two patricide shootings linked together, Rachel delivers a strong anti-gun statement to the press.  Deek Jackson beats up Tara for getting pregnant.  Later, while drunk, he pays Rachel a visit and threatens her with a gun.  Eric surprises him with a gun of his own.          Two days before Christmas, Eric breaks into a cold sweat when he sees Santa Claus at the mall.  To Rachel's dismay, he gets into line behind the other kids.  Sensing trouble, parents pull their children out of line.  As Eric confronts Santa Clause, Rachel is all too aware that some­one in the crowd is stalking her.  Christmas in Sharpton will never be the same.

The Novel Project: The first five pages of The Accidental Santa Killer, pitch, and synopsis

THE ACCIDENTAL SANTA KILLER
Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.-Edward Young (1684-1765)
1                On the day before Christmas, Rachel Layton breathes in the aroma of baked chicken, buttered baked potato, and corn as she glances out the kitchen window.  She can barely make out the top of the Ever­­green Trailer Court sign arched over the entrance, decorated with blinking Christmas lights, several burned or busted out.  The lights only add to the gaudiness of the place like a drunk foolishly drawing attention to himself.  Since the other trailers all have their Christ­mas decor­a­tions up and their trees lit, it made not having any feel worse, like watching another kid lick an ice-cream cone when your own parents are too strict or too stin­gy to buy you one.  She lets out a prolonged sigh for the seventeen years of lost battles over nearly every­thing related to Christ­mas, especially allowing a Christmas tree inside their trailer.          She notices Lyle's shit-faced grin as he leans, arms crossed, against the refrigerator.  It's like he's mocking her.  Like he knows some­thing she doesn't and is rubbing it in.  She hates that.        "What?" Rachel asks, in no mood for any of his antics.  She and the children, Tara and Eric, sit down at the table.  Lyle continues to grin at her.  He winks at Eric and guzzles the beer and wipes his mouth on his flannel shirt as he sur­veys the food as if it's the furthest thing from his mind.  Reluctantly, he sits down at the table opposite of her.          Ignoring him, Rachel and the kids dig in.  In between bites, she glances at Lyle, knowing full well why he isn't hungry.  He pigged out on the peanut-butter cookies about a half hour ago, after she had pointedly told him to wait until after dinner.  There's still cookie residue on his chin.  Evidence.  His hair, as usual, isn't combed, nor did he bother to wash his oily face.  The longer she looks at him, the more she despises his wide forehead, mis­chievous blue eyes, pointy nose, and jutting chin.        "You're not going to eat, are you?" she finally says, tired of him grinning at her like some simpleton.  At least Lyle didn't hate Christmas in the Scrooge humbug way; no, he just thought that it was all a bit farci­cal:  an old man in a white beard prancing around in a red suit, people haul­ing trees into their homes, strangers popping by to sing Christmas carols, and everyone wish­ing every­one else "Merry Christmas" as if they meant it, when he knew that hardly any­one, even within the same family, really gave a shit—at least not in Sharpton.  He wanted absolutely nothing to do with Christ­mas except, of course, receiving presents.  He isn't that stupid.  Some years, if he got around to it, he'd buy her a present, too, usually gags that weren't that funny, like last year's rubber chicken, or the black dildo.  At least Eric, who was four at the time, got a big kick out of the dildo even if­ he didn't have a clue what it was.  He just thought it looked funny when Rachel pulled it out of a family size box of Colgate toothpaste, no doubt expecting toothpaste.  Or may­be he was laugh­ing at Tara's oh-my-god expression.  Being five years older than Eric, she knew exactly what it did resemble.  Since Christmas is less than a long day way, Rachel can't help but wonder what Lyle got her this year.  Since it isn't going to be mean­ing­­ful, or anything she can use or wear, she prefers nothing at all.        The telephone rings, right on cue.  Rachel grabs Tara and Eric, stopping them from getting up.        Lyle takes another gulp of beer and squares his shoulders.  "Why look at me?"        "Only you get calls during meal times."        "My friends eat at odd times—that's all."        "You mean drink," Rachel replies, "and they drink all the time."        Lyle takes the beer with him as he gets up from the table, no doubt glad for an excuse to get away.  He glances at Mr. Potato Head who's looking down at them all from his perch on top of the refrigerator with an air of superiority matched only by Lyle himself.        "Keep an eye on them until I get back."        "Talking to your toy again?" Rachel asks.  Mr. Potato Head not only belongs to Lyle but also resembles him, par­ti­cu­larly the limited facial expressions.        "At least Mr. Potato Head doesn't talk back like some people I know," Lyle says, and turns the corner before Rachel has time to respond.  He continues past the mahogany gun cabinet containing several well-oiled rifles and shotguns.  Next to it is the yard-sale-bought, chipped and sloppily painted black desk where the telephone is located.  He answers it.        Rachel turns to her eleven-year-old son Eric, who's eyeing her as if she has just com­mitted a crime by crossing words with his father.        "Eat up while it's hot," she says.        "I'm eating," Eric replies, his mouth full of chicken.        "Don't talk with your mouth full," Rachel says, sounding so much like her mother it scares her.  She glances at Tara, whose head is cocked to one side as she fingers her shoulder-length reddish blond hair.  At sixteen, Tara looks older than she is.  For Rachel that means trouble.  At fifteen, she already lost her virginity, the only thing that Tara and she seem to have in common, other than Lyle.        Tara had no say in that matter.  Rachel, most assuredly and regretta­bly, did.        Noticing that Tara is still looking at her, she asks, "What are you looking at?"        Tara rolls her turquoise eyes—eyes that remind Rachel far too much and far too often of Lyle.  Not only the way she rolls them but how they fail to see the world beyond the limita­tions of Sharpton, Pennsyl­vania.  For that matter, Tara's whole damn dimpled-cheeks, thin-nosed, hawkish face is Lyle through and through.  At least Tara keeps her hair neatly combed.  Lyle would rather die than comb his hair, which he only does first thing in the morning or after showering—some­thing else he keeps to a minimum.        Rachel sighs in defeat and glances up at Mr. Potato Head.  "What are you looking at?"  Like Tara, it doesn't bother to reply.          "Told you it'd happen again," Lyle says, returning to the table, a cockiness to his gait from never being wrong despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  "Someone busted out Sam Taylor's window and broke in.  Took all their presents.  Even swiped some of the ornaments off the tree!"        "Who would do such a mean thing?"  Rachel lays down her fork in protest.  The Taylor's trailer is just around the bend, not far from theirs.        Reclaiming his seat, Lyle glances at the food as though wishing he'd already eaten it.         "That's the second one this month.  Told you it was going to happen again, didn't I?"  He grins smugly to let his genius sink in.  "Let 'em try that here and I'll shoot their ass."        "Shoot first, ask questions later," Eric pipes in, and drinks some milk.        "Got that straight."  Lyle aims his index finger at Eric like a pistol.  "Pow!"  He blows away the imaginary smoke and winks at Eric.        "We should give Sarah something to help out," Rachel says.  "How does fifty sound?"        Lyle picks up the beer bottle by the neck and strangles the idea. "Fifty is a lot of money."        "Just means you got to cut down your drinking and eat more."  She picks up her fork as if to show him how.        "Twenty sounds better," Lyle says, leaving the fork where it is.        "Twenty is barely going to buy a decent present.  She's got three teenagers."        "That Connie's working over at The Diner, so they're not hurting none."        "With Sam drinking away the pay, she doesn't have much of a choice, now does she?"         Lyle doesn't reply, which doesn't surprise her.  Sam's drinking is a touchy subject since he's one of Lyle's drinking buddies.  Lyle finishes the beer, gets up and grabs another bottle from the fridge.        In protest, Rachel adds, "Maybe I'll also give them one of our pies."          "Not the apple pie," Lyle says, eyeing her, reclaiming his seat.                     "Only thinking of yourself.  Like always."        "I happen to like apple pie.  You too, right, Eric?"        "Me too," Eric replies.  He drinks more milk.        "I can bake another."  Rachel looks from Lyle to Eric.  "Eat your potatoes."        Lyle stretches out his arms in a manic pose and says, "Not in front of Mr. Potato Head, please!"        Eric sprays milk from his nose and mouth as he cracks up laughing.        "You're so disgusting," Tara says, still fingering her hair.        "Clean that up now!" Rachel says.                                                                                   *  *  *The Accidental Santa KillerWhat if your son accidentally kills his dad dressed up as Santa Claus?
The Accidental Santa Killer (96,000 words), a short-list finalist for the 2009 Faulkner-Wisdom novel contest (as A Season for Fools), is the first of a potential three-book series.
         While struggling to survive a loveless marriage for the sake of her two children, Rachel Layton finds her fragile world torn apart when her eleven-year-old son kills a burglar who turns out to be his drunken father in a Santa Claus suit.  The shooting sets off a chain-reaction of events that threatens to tear apart a small Pennsylvania town.          Cast as a villain by the media, Rachel is determined to hold her family together, even as her son gets beaten up in school and her teenage daughter moves in with a low life twice her age.  Tired of being on the defensive, Rachel speaks out against hunters buying their children guns or leaving them lying around for them to find.  Despite threatening phone calls and a brick through her window, Rachel refuses to back off until Gordon's Gunshop on Main Street is shut down.          While shopping at the mall for Christmas, Rachel overlooks one important detail.  Santa Claus.  To her dismay, her son gets into line behind the other kids.  Sensing trouble, parents start to pull their children out of the line.  Soon the whole town is watching as her son confronts Santa Claus.  Still trying to come to terms with her deceased husband, Rachel is all too aware that someone in the crowd is stalking her.  One thing is certain:  Christmas in Sharpton will never be the same.
THE ACCIDENTAL SANTA KILLER              Synopsis, Novel 96,000 words            Rachel's 11-year-old son accidentally shoots his drunken father dressed as Santa Claus – setting off a chain-reaction of events that threatens to tear apart a small Pennsylvanian town.
          The day before Christmas, Rachel has a spat with her husband Lyle over the rifle that he bought for their eleven-year-old son, Eric.  While teaching Eric how to shoot the rifle, Lyle passes along valuable tips about being caught in a life threatening situation in light of recent break-ins at their trailer court, including his friend, Sam Taylor.  While Rachel is visiting a friend, Lyle sneaks out to have a beer.  But first he puts Eric in charge with explicit instruc­tions to shoot first and ask questions later.  At Roadkill, Lyle nearly gets into a fight with Deek Jack­son, a low life his age who is secretly seeing his sixteen-year-old daughter, Tara.  As a joke, Lyle borrows a Santa Claus suit.  Eric, thinking he's a burglar, shoots him.          Reporters, demanding to know how Rachel can raise a child to kill Santa Claus, flock to her trailer.  Forced to make a statement, she accidentally lets out that Lyle dislikes Christ­mas.  After Lyle's funeral, the press antagonizes Eric into making a sensational comment about his hating Santa Claus.  Tara also admits to Rachel that she's sleeping with Deek Jackson.          When school reopens, troublemakers goad Eric into a fight and he gets beaten up, while his best friend Duncan Hayes only watches.  Rachel is forced to find a job as a waitress at The Diner, where she works with Sam Taylor's teenage daughter, Connie.  Tara quits school to move in with Deek Jackson.  Finding the receipt for Eric's rifle, Rachel pays a visit to Gordon's Gunshop.  Later, she runs into Dale Hocker, Eric's principal and an old boy­friend.  They start to date again.          A drunken Sam Taylor beats up his daughter Connie.  Rachel discovers that she is pregnant with Lyle's baby.  Dale abruptly ends their relation­ship.  On the last day of school, Eric is attacked by a group of boys and is hospitalized.  Feel­ing desperate, Rachel calls her estranged father, who agrees to help take care of Eric.          An elderly friend convinces Rachel to speak out against hunters' careless habit of leaving guns lying around for their children to find.  During Rachel's talk, she's heckled by Bert Hayes (Duncan's father), Deek Jack­son, and Gordon Damby, owner of Gordon's Gunshop.  A drunken Sam Taylor kills a family of five in a car accident.  Barely alive, he blames Rachel and makes wild accusations that she's a witch.  A brick with a bullet taped to it is thrown through Rachel's window.  Suspect­ing Gordon Damby, Rachel leads a protest outside Gordon's Gunshop.  Rachel confronts Eric about fighting and skipping school, only to learn that kids at school are calling her a witch and a whore for sleeping with their principal.          Wanting to put a stop to all this, Rachel confronts Eric's principal, Dale Hocker.  During a heated argument, Rachel goes into labor.  Dale not only delivers the baby, but also, after 18 years, finally proposes to her.  Rachel's not so sure this is a good idea.          Bert Hayes forces his son Duncan to go hunting and Duncan shoots him in the back.  With the two patricide shootings linked together, Rachel delivers a strong anti-gun statement to the press.  Deek Jackson beats up Tara for getting pregnant.  Later, while drunk, he pays Rachel a visit and threatens her with a gun.  Eric surprises him with a gun of his own.          Two days before Christmas, Eric breaks into a cold sweat when he sees Santa Claus at the mall.  To Rachel's dismay, he gets into line behind the other kids.  Sensing trouble, parents pull their children out of line.  As Eric confronts Santa Clause, Rachel is all too aware that some­one in the crowd is stalking her.  Christmas in Sharpton will never be the same.