Gerald Everett Jones's Blog: Gerald Everett Jones - Author, page 22
March 31, 2024
This Week's Audiobook Episodes GP706-GP710
Here’s a list of the next five weekday releases of the 24 episodes in the Preacher Finds a Corpse audiobook.
New episodes will be posted each weekday morning at 8 am Eastern / 5 am Pacific until all 24 episodes in the book have been released.
May you find the novel intriguing and compelling, and please don’t hesitate to leave your impressions in the Comments section of the posts.
Monday, April 1GP706 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Episode 06 - Chapters 9, 10, and 11 (37:45 minutes)Tuesday, April 2GP707 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Episode 7 - Chapter 12 (21:33 minutes)Coralie, waitress at the C'mon Inn, gives Evan another reason Bob was depressed. Evan breaks into Bob's laptop and phone and finally gets some hard evidence. Still unable to make sense of things, Evan has an imaginary debate with his deceased fiance Naomi.
Wednesday, April 3GP708 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Episode 8 - Chapter 13 (33:26 minutes)Evan meets with his boss Zip, who shares gossip about locals, including Shackleton, who manages a bank.
Thursday, April, 04GP709 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Episode 9 - Chapters 14 and 15 (27:51 minutes)Evan returns to the sheriff's office to review the autopsy.
Friday, April 5GP710 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Episode 10 - Chapter 16 (47:57 minutes)Evan does some more data drilling and remembers a time when he and Bob went hunting with Uncle Dick. On his way to see crusty old attorney Angus Clapper, Evan drives through the town of Peculiar.
Lawyer Angus Clapper tells Evan about the terms of Bob's will and two problems with title to the Emmett farm. He hints at a third complication but can't explain.
There are four novels in the Preacher Evan Wycliff mystery series. We’ve produced the first one as an audiobook. Your support here will help us to record more!
In Which I Explain 'Boychik Lit'
PrefaceI recently reissued the Rollo Hemphill Misadventures series, and a new generation of fans seems to be discovering its amusements. I felt I had to write this apologetic Preface to excuse my crustiness.
When the notion of reissuing Rollo Hemphill’s misadventures floated past in my stream of consciousness, my next thought was, Hey, those stories are evergreen — why not? But more practical considerations of the publishing marketplace prevailed, necessitating this explanatory note.
My concern isn’t that the characters won’t be relatable or their follies any less funny in the glare of freshly fired-up high-wattage attention. No, the problem is one of perceived technological obsolescence. The first novel in the series — My Inflatable Friend — was released in 2007. To some of you in the shivering audience for whom first impressions can be cool if not downright cold, that era might not seem so long ago. But to others, the crusty tale might as well have occurred just before the undocumented end of the last Ice Age. (There have been more than one, I’m told. Hence the rush to print again, lest the next big freeze overtake us. Hmm. Some in fire, some in ice. We probably don’t get to pick.)
When the first novel in the series was released, cell phones existed but weren’t yet what you’d call smart. Email was a thing, surely, but social media had not yet turned the world’s great newspapers into ezines for old folks.
Some Luddites still clung to their fax (facsimile) machines, especially those who insisted that electronic signature was an oxymoron.
Some movie crews who were filming were still actually using film. Likewise for shows taping.
Into this latter-day Age of Innocence schlepped poor Rollo, whose challenges getting attention from females, then avoiding journalists and G-men, could no doubt have been helped by the option of sending the occasional exculpatory text message. Emojis wouldn’t have hurt his cause either, and an amusing animation, especially if cloned onto his bodily image as a wisecracking avatar, might have put him right over the top. (Or on the bottom. At the outset, positional advantage was far from his foremost concern.)
Back then, climate change could have been mitigated — or didn’t exist — depending on which talking head you credited. In fact, “the end of the world as we know it” was mostly a worn-out sci-fi theme, hardly a topic of almost unremitting daily conversation. A pandemic was a post-WWI episode, not feared to be repeated because threats such as Ebola and AIDS had presumably been contained. The James Bond movie franchise was still going strong because male guilt, belatedly dredged up by #MeToo, had not yet made it necessary (spoiler alert!) to kill the legendary rapist off.
And — perhaps most significant for the sake of Rollo’s first episode — lifelike robots designed for intimate uses may have been in development but were certainly not yet ready for the likes of Rollo.
Mind you, Rollo’s stories need not be read in sequence. Rubber Babes exists in its own quirky paranoid reality, and Farnsworth’s Revenge is no less sweet when not saved for last, but the through-line of Rollo’s lurching character development does flow in a bobbing chronology through these books. Wise readers will know better than to regard him as a role model. Rollo’s problem — if you insist on calling it that — is paradoxical: No matter what scheme he tries or how it fails — he persists in falling ever-upward.
I could wonder, though, whether male-centered comic humor can be written anymore. Men seem more pathetic than funny now, as do some who oddly claim to be both white and marginalized. Satire might still be a useful term, but nowadays its connotations tend to be political. Rollo does get enmeshed in complications on an international scale — but he has no agenda other than self-preservation.
My original inspiration for these novels was my admiration for the novelist and poet Peter De Vries. In the mid-twentieth century, his male-centered comic novels ridiculed religion and extramarital sex — often in the same book. However, the whiff of controversy, so delicious in his day, has not aged well, and some would say positively reeks. In Forever Panting (my favorite), an out-of-work actor divorces his wife and marries his mother-in-law, continuing to lust after his ex. In Slouching Toward Kalamazoo, a female high-school teacher carries on an affair with her tender-aged male student.
Such themes are not exactly fodder for popular humor these days.
Lest you think I’m preoccupied with peters, I’ll confess that the works of Peter Lefcourt also influenced me. The Woody is brilliant, and by virtue of its inside-the-Beltway setting, it qualifies as legitimately political satire. (Alas, whether Lefcourt was satirizing Gary Hart or Bill Clinton or both is a question not likely to be explored by any contemporary book club.) And he wrote Eleven Karens when it was still possible to bestow the name on a newborn girl.
As well, when I began to stir the pot of silliness on my own, the publishing business had finally been taken over by women — along with the belated recognition that, for decades if not since Gutenberg, the most avid readers have been women. The genre chick-lit had come full flower. Appreciating the polar opposites such as De Vries and Lefcourt, I coined the term boychik lit as a lodestar for sinking ships helmed by ill-fated peters.
So, by way of further explanation — as if any more of my rants were needed to cheer you on to root for Rollo — I append my essay “Boychik Lit” at the end of the book.
Thank you for the use of the genre. If Rollo’s exploits bring a smile, you needn’t tell anyone.
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March 29, 2024
Chapter 8: Preacher Finds a Corpse - Bonus Audiobook Episode GP705
Here’s the next post in the weekday releases of the 24 episodes in the Preacher Finds a Corpse audiobook.
Episode GP706 will be posted Monday morning at 8am Eastern / 5am Pacific and the other episodes each weekday thereafter.
May you find the novel intriguing and compelling, and please don’t hesitate to leave your impressions in the Comments section of the posts.
Episode GP705 DescriptionGP705 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Chapter 8 (26:15 minutes)Evan argues with Edie, who nevertheless lets him go through Bob's personal things to find evidence.
Chapter 8
Wednesday 2 pm
Taggart House
Edie was not behaving like a new widow. She was dressed for some meeting or social event. She had on a crisp print dress underneath her tailored herringbone overcoat with a velvet collar. She carried a designer handbag and had on matching pumps. She wore a hat that might be considered smart these days, but Evan wouldn’t know. She’d taken some care with applying her lipstick, which was a deep, wet-look red.
Evan’s first task this afternoon would be to look in Bob’s office for an address book, the most likely place to find passwords. He’d brought two laptops and two phones, both his and Bob’s. Not owning a briefcase, Evan had the laptops in an oilskin bag to keep them dry. The cold, crisp morning had turned into an afternoon drizzle.
Edie seemed pleased his return was punctual. She was forthright. “Did you take care of the arrangements?”
“I will authorize the cremation if we see no complications in the autopsy report, which we’ll get tomorrow. And I made some calls. The cremains will be delivered to Hill and Sons. They’ll provide a silver urn and a hand-carved walnut case with the appropriate Masonic emblem. His parents are buried in Rockville Cemetery, and I need to file that paperwork with Bates County. The car from Hill and Sons will take you and me to the cemetery after the memorial. I booked the church service and the reception at First Baptist for Saturday morning at ten. I reserved the obit notices in the papers. Do give me the family and guest list so I can make sure they’re all notified. It’s kind of late, but I’ll do what I can to reach the ones out of town.”
“Thank you,” she said curtly. She was already moving toward the door. “I wouldn’t know where to start. The door will lock behind you when you leave.”
“I know you’re in a hurry, so let’s talk more about this later. Maybe I can help Josh calm down.”
“Don’t bother with him. What’s done is done.”
More below the paywall…
March 28, 2024
Chapter 7: Preacher Finds a Corpse - Bonus Audiobook Episode GP704
Here’s the next post in the weekday releases of the 24 episodes in the Preacher Finds a Corpse audiobook.
Episode GP705 will be posted Friday morning at 8am Eastern / 5am Pacific and the other episodes each weekday thereafter.
May you find the novel intriguing and compelling, and please don’t hesitate to leave your impressions in the Comments section of the posts.
Episode GP704 DescriptionGP704 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Chapter 7 (26:22 minutes)Evan remembers high times with Bob when they were boys on the farm. They'd argued recently. Was that what drove Bob to shoot himself?
Chapter 7
Wednesday 1:30 pm
With Evan
Evan had to skip lunch, a choice he rarely made. But he’d promised to return to Edie before she had to leave the house.
On the drive over, a few brief calls took care of some of the essential arrangements. Hill and Sons Mortuary. The office secretary at First Baptist. The two newspapers. He tried not to worry he was tempting fate by driving on icy roads as he juggled his phone.
For a guy who just wanted to let go, I’m up to my neck in responsibility.
Immediate pressing matters aside, Evan’s thoughts returned to how he might have chosen a different path. He was beginning to suspect his returning here from Boston would prove to be a huge mistake, maybe even the onset of another blue period. Shrinks call it depression. Theologians call it the long, dark night of the soul. Crises of both faith and mortality had blown him back to his roots in the black dirt, but he’d assumed those storms were over. Now here was the jolt of another devastating loss, and he feared what was left of his faith couldn’t withstand the hit.
How can I help anyone else when my own life is such a mess?
More below the paywall…
March 27, 2024
Guest Podcast: When does Anxiety = Love?
No one can say where a book comes from, least of all the person who writes it. Books are born out of ignorance, and if they go on after they are written, it’s only to the degree that they cannot be understood. - Paul Auster, Leviathan
Here is the MP3 audio version of my previously posted interview with Randi Bowslaugh
Guest Podcast: Write or Die! Show with Randi BowslaughYou worry, fret, and fuss about the people closest to you. Unless you’re totally unhinged, you won’t be scolding people on the street.
Remember - Audiobooks at no extra charge to our paid subscribers!
Preacher Finds a Corpse - 41 chapters in 24 half-hour episodes released here on Thinking About Thinking. Coffee-break short!
Feed your curiosity with a paid subscription to this Thinking About Thinking blog. With a paid subscription, you’ll gain access to all the content that’s here, including podcasts, and you’ll be helping us build our worldwide community through storytelling and self-expression.
Chapters 4-6: Preacher Finds a Corpse - Bonus Audiobook Episode GP703
Here’s the next post in the weekday releases of the 24 episodes in the Preacher Finds a Corpse audiobook.
Episode GP704 will be posted Thursday morning at 8am Eastern / 5am Pacific and the other episodes each weekday thereafter.
May you find the novel intriguing and compelling, and please don’t hesitate to leave your impressions in the Comments section of the posts.
Episode GP703 DescriptionGP703 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Chapters 4, 5 and 6 (28:37 minutes)Stu Shackleton gets a lesson in home defense from Deputy Griggs. Evan reflects on why he didn't become an ordained minister. Evan meets with Sheriff Otis and begins his unofficial investigation.
Chapter 4
Wednesday 11 am
El Dorado Springs
Stuart Shackleton was so nervous he willed his hands not to shake — and so angry he could strangle a puppy. He felt a cold sweat trickle down his right arm into his palm, and he worried the moisture would compromise his tight grip on his weapon.
By God, no one was going to threaten him and get away with it. Ever!
It all happened in less than two heartbeats. He heard a noise, a single footfall. He again scanned the dimly lit room, his head turning with a mechanical slowness from right to left. And just as his focus rested momentarily on the bay window to the south, he caught a blur at the edge of his peripheral vision against the north wall, on his right. His eyes flitted over there, ahead of his neck turn. As his right arm raised his Sig Sauer to join the palm of his left, he took a half-step in that direction to ensure his stance was wide and solid.
The blur was a head and then a torso. From a hiding place behind a wine-colored, leather-covered divan, the dark intruder jumped to his feet. His face was hidden in shadow, so it was impossible to tell whether he was black or white or some shade in between.
The creep’s right arm was also in motion!
More below the paywall…
March 26, 2024
Preacher Finds a Corpse - Bonus Audiobook Episode 2
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Here’s the next post in the weekday releases of the 24 episodes in the Preacher Finds a Corpse audiobook.
Episode 3 will be posted Wednesday morning at 8am Eastern / 5am Pacific and the other episodes each weekday thereafter.
May you find the novel intriguing and compelling, and please don’t hesitate to leave your impressions in the Comments section of the posts.
Episode 2 DescriptionGP702 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Chapter 3 (36:03 minutes)Evan confronts Bob's widow Edie. She doesn't appear sorrowful, but she asks him to handle the arrangements.
Chapter 3
Wednesday 7 am
Taggart House
With rustic fieldstone-and-redwood exterior, the house was a handsome three-bedroom rambling ranch, having been custom-built to Bob’s specification on the shore of a small lake less than a decade ago. Evan had visited a few times since he’d been back. Oddly out of keeping with the home’s Western design, its carefully selected furnishings were colonial and expensive, although factory-milled. Drexel Heritage or Ethan Allen. Edie had moved in just three years ago, and Evan guessed she’d given all the first wife’s stuff to charity and redone the place to her conservative tastes. Maybe then she could sit in the parlor and imagine she and her husband were in a grander New England gray-stone mansion in a swanky old-line neighborhood like Swope Park in KC. But Bob wouldn’t have cared whether his chairs were covered in chenille or canvas.
Brownie did not greet Evan at the door, which was her habit. The preacher came in through the side entry to the kitchen, which was unlocked. The kitchen looked newly renovated, complete with high-end, stainless-steel appliances.
As Evan walked in on Edith Taggart, she was dressed in an oriental-print housecoat with fuzzy pink slippers. Her hair was in rollers, and she hadn’t finished putting her face on yet. She didn’t seem the least bit drowsy, and there were no streaks of residual mascara on her cheeks where they might have been wet from crying.
Why the rollers? Where’s she planning on going? Or does she just do it out of habit?
More below the paywall…
March 25, 2024
Bonus Audiobook Episode 1
This post begins weekday releases of the 24 episodes in the Preacher Finds a Corpse audiobook.
Episode 2 will be posted tomorrow morning at 8 am Eastern / 5 am Pacific and the other episodes each weekday thereafter.
May you find the novel intriguing and compelling, and please don’t hesitate to leave your impressions in the Comments section of the posts.
Episode 1 DescriptionThe rest of the book text and the audiobook player are behind the paywall.
GP701 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Episode 1 - Chapters 1 and 2 (21:53 minutes)Evan finds his friend's body and suspects it's not suicide. The cops want to know what he was doing there. Josh and Linda Emmett get a notice their farmhouse will be bulldozed.
Chapter 1
Wednesday Dawn
Emmett’s Pasture
Preacher Evan Wycliff found his friend Bob Taggart’s body in the early light, about a half-hour after dawn, on the frigid morning of February 29. The light snow from last week had all but disappeared in a brief thaw, leaving a frozen crust on the loamy farmland. The wind was brisk, with a bite. It was a bright day to be glad the roads were safe, salted, and dry. There was no good reason for anyone to get hurt today.
Evan had been on his way to a turkey shoot. But he didn’t have a gun and he had no intention of borrowing one. He was going to sit with his friends in the woods, learn how to blow silly, warbling sounds on a reed-whistle turkey call, take greedy gulps of strong coffee laced with whiskey, and — most important in his role as compassionate counselor — make a mighty effort to make sure his friends didn’t get so drunk they’d shoot each other accidentally. The others liked him because he told good stories and because he’d laugh at theirs even when they knew their jokes were lame.
Now it had all suddenly gone bad. If only the dreadful event having occurred in a leap year would mean he’d have fewer times to acknowledge its anniversary. The mathematical side of his brain worked that way.
Evan had an analytical mind, which, despite his efforts to the contrary, had drawn him away from his studies of theology and into science. Unanswered questions, whether metaphysical or worldly, would get stuck in his head and plague his thoughts.
[more below the paywall]
March 24, 2024
This Week's Audiobook Episodes GP701-GP705
Here’s a list of the next five weekday releases of the 24 episodes in the Preacher Finds a Corpse audiobook.
New episodes will be posted each weekday morning at 8 am Eastern / 5 am Pacific until all 24 episodes in the book have been released.
May you find the novel intriguing and compelling, and please don’t hesitate to leave your impressions in the Comments section of the posts.
Monday, March, 25GP701 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Episode GP705 - Chapters 1 and 2 (21:54 minutes)Tuesday, March, 26GP702 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Episode GP702 - Chapter 3 (36:03 minutes)Evan finds his friend's body and suspects it's not suicide. The cops want to know what he was doing there. Josh and Linda Emmett get a notice their farmhouse will be bulldozed.
Wednesday, March, 27GP703 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Episode GP703 - Chapters 4, 5, and 6 (28:37 minutes)Evan confronts Bob's widow Edie. She doesn't appear sorrowful, but she asks him to handle the arrangements.
Thursday, March, 28GP704 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Episode GP704 - Chapter 7 (26:22 minutes)Stu Shackleton gets a lesson in home defense from Deputy Griggs. Evan reflects on why he didn't become an ordained minister. Evan meets with Sheriff Otis and begins his unofficial investigation.
Friday, March, 29GP705 Preacher Finds a Corpse - Episode GP705 - Chapter 8 (26:15 minutes)Evan remembers high times with Bob when they were boys on the farm. They'd argued recently. Was that what drove Bob to shoot himself?
Evan argues with Edie, who nevertheless lets him go through Bob's personal things to find evidence.
There are four novels in the Preacher Evan Wycliff mystery series. We’ve produced the first one as an audiobook. Your support here will help us to record more!
Teatime with Miss Liz
Part-time minister and reluctant investigator Evan Wycliff chases down problems most people in this farmland community would rather ignore. In every case, it comes down to…
Why is there evil in the world? Why do bad things happen do good people? How do bad actors keep getting away with it?
Click here to watch on YouTube.
Beginning Monday, March 25In the fourth book in the series, a crazed scientist knocks on Evan’s door with a bizarre warning - the Deep State may be planning to fake the Second Coming of Christ with advanced virtual-reality technology. Meanwhile, a faith-healing evangelist is luring poor and homeless people to a religious retreat with promises of ample food, then exhorting them to prepare for the End Times by starving themselves to death. Evan can’t ignore these unbelievable stories when a young woman from his church disappears inside the cult leader’s farm.
On each weekday morning at 8 am Eastern Time / 5 am Pacific, we’ll be releasing an audiobook episode of Preacher Finds a Corpse.
The audiobook player will be behind the paywall. Upgrade to a paid subscription for $5 per month or $30 for a year and start listening.
Whenever you want to binge, you’ll find previously released episodes on the Bonus Audiobook Episodes tab of this Thinking About Thinking blog.
Audiobook Preview here.Feed your curiosity with a paid subscription to this Thinking About Thinking blog. With a paid subscription, you’ll gain access to all the content that’s here, including podcasts, and you’ll be helping us build our worldwide community through storytelling and self-expression.
Gerald Everett Jones - Author
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