I have seven novels ready for review by a willing publisher or perhaps a movie producer. On February 1, 2007, I put up sample chapters for three novels. As of November 9, 2009, I’ve put up the entire manuscript for The Hermit of Turkey Hill, A Man for Every Purpose, and Corporate Sex. Samples consisting of a few chapters are also available. On September 9, 2010, I put up the entire manuscript for The Open Independence of the Sea. On August 15, 2011, I put up the entire manuscript for Safe Harbours and Open Seas which is closely related to The Open Independence of the Sea, being a spoof of likely mis-readings of that earlier novel. On August 11, 2012, I put up the entire manuscript for The Modern Critic, which was originally a part of Corporate Sex and has several characters in common.
- The Hermit of Turkey Hill is a story based upon a friendship, of sorts, that my grandfather — Charlie Milroy — had with a man who was the gentler sort of sociopath. The man lived in Ludlow for 35 years or so and spoke so few words that people weren’t sure where he was from. I changed the name of the town, changed the name of the police chief — my grandfather, and made up a number of characters and little events to flesh out the few facts I knew about this story. Those few facts were the important ones, but good narratives are not made up of only the important events. The little details, which may be in the background, are necessary to make the narrative concrete. Sample chapters may be downloaded at sample chapters for The Hermit of Turkey Hill or the entire book at The Hermit of Turkey Hill.
- A Man For Every Purpose is a tale of a man who fragments when he is not able to deal with some of the problems in his life. It is told from the point of view of that character. One of my motivations in writing this tale is to show that true and moral fantasy has more to do with human perceptions than with magical events. Nothing impossible occurs in this novel but the telling of the possible events twists them and colors them in strange ways. Sample chapters may be downloaded at sample chapters for A Man for Every Purpose. The entire book can be downloaded at A Man for Every Purpose.
- Corporate Sex was named Unleashed Desires when I submitted it to publishers and agents about five years ago. It is about the mating rituals and forms of reproduction that take place in the New York City financial districts.Sample chapters may be downloaded at sample chapters for Corporate Sex. The entire book can be downloaded at Corporate Sex.
- The Open Independence of the Sea is the second novel I wrote but the oldest one existing. I’m working on rewriting my very first novel. The Open Independence of the Sea is the story of a young man who is trying to make sense of the stories of a grandfather who built churches and hospitals in Africa as well as missile-launching systems in America, a dead cousin who was more than half Nigerian and also more than half Welsh, a long-dead grandmother who had a reputation as being a nervy biologist, a 400-pound man who liked to sit on other people’s faces, a 400-pound gorilla who was far gentler, a wise killer, a world devastated by nuclear war, and various other creatures and events. He particularly struggles with the science-tinged poetry of that dead cousin who had made himself aware of the forwards of many classics in science and mathematics. The entire book can be downloaded at The Open Independence of the Sea.
- Safe Harbours and Open Seas was written after the publishing industry showed no interest whatsoever in The Open Independence of the Seas. Some chapters in Safe Harbours and Open Seas are copied over from an early version of that other novel. Safe Harbours and Open Seas looks at a conflict between one author who is trying to make sense of God’s Creation, both science and human history and another author who has a literalistic and superficial understanding of modern empirical knowledge. The first author, Parnell Lopez, is one of the main characters of The Open Independence of the Sea. The entire book can be downloaded at Safe Harbours and Open Seas.
- The Modern Critic is some non-essential middle to my novel Corporate Sex, a tale of courting behavior on Wall Street, though this book is about literary world which is rarely visited these days by the sorts who are successful on Wall Street or Avenue of the Americas. The entire book can be downloaded at The Modern Critic.
- Gathering the Silence is the first volume of a modern conversion story, that of a young man who finds himself on the path to becoming a Christian thinker and author. The story runs parallel to mine but is much different at times, elaborated in a way to make things clear as they were to me after years of contemplation. I am currently planning on writing another two volumes to complete the story, perhaps one to be published toward the end of 2015 and one toward the end of 2016. The entire book can be downloaded at Gathering the Silence.
- The Simple Life is the story of some men and women and children gathering together in New England to form a community and take care of the vulnerable and the abandoned. After they start to form that community, the climate turned a little ice-age cold. Many have moved down to sunnier regions.
Adam Smith? The Invisible Hand? This is a concrete world which resists too consistent an application of abstractions…
Maybe we just need better abstractions or better ways of applying the ones we already have?
In any case, something invisible is working. Sometimes building and nurturing. Sometimes smashing.
There will be more sequels, perhaps two or three.
The book can be downloaded at The Simple Life.
- A Stranger in a Land of Strangers continues the story begun in Gathering the Silence, described above. It is something of a fictionalized, spiritual biography of someone much like me in some ways, very different in others.
In the announcement of the availability of A Stranger in a Land of Strangers on my blog, I wrote:
This is what I wrote about that earlier novel in the announcement of the availability of the first edition:
In a sense this is both my latest and my first novel. It’s about the fifth version of what started out as a straightforward fictional telling of my spiritual life, climaxing in my entry into the Catholic Church. Now, it’s the first half of a story about the conversion of a man into a Christian author and its not nearly so straightforward.
The story continues with a certain success—though not of the financial sort—in the conversion of the protagonist to Christian author. There is serious regression in the more important religious conversion, though there are hints the two conversions are intertwined and, perhaps, ultimately one.
The Christian author might pull himself along on a spiritual recovery?
Who yet knows?
My main email address is loydf at loydfueston.com.