11/7/08 Dear Ms Einstein: GADABOUT (Literary Fiction/Commercial - 74,500 words) has been likened to The Great Gatsby, Kerouac’s On the Road and The Sun Also Rises, as if Nick Carraway went sailing with Jake Barnes and they wound up having dinner with Daisy and Jordan at Neil Cassidy’s restaurant. Legend has it the wooden sailing ketch Gadabout was built to show seven lost sailors the way home. Rick Walling, her fourth owner and first person narrator, witnessed the death of his...

It was only the Hendrikson side of the family and that was just fine with John. His sister’s deflated Mc Mansion had always felt cramped. Thank God it would just be the nine of them. They could all squeeze around the dining room table and no one would have to eat in the kitchen. His father would feel more inclined to tell stories with the others not there. His brother-in-law’s family could be difficult at times. John liked his father’s stories. “So, what would you like...

Four in the afternoon was the best time to be down at the harbor. The old stone wharf was empty except for a few yachts tied up for supplies, and everyone was either out on their boats or up in the hills in their homes waiting for the sun to set. The restaurants and bars along the waterfront were just beginning to stir, the owners getting ready for that evening’s performance, and the heat of the day had begun to simmer off and the Trades whipped the sea into gorgeous shadows of blue-gre...

It was only the Hendrikson side of the family and that was just fine with John. His sister’s deflated Mc Mansion had always felt cramped. Thank God it would just be the nine of them. They could all squeeze around the dining room table and no one would eat in the kitchen.  It was also his nephew’s first year at NYU Film School. John was anxious to hear David's impressions of Greenwich Village and get in a few, good natured jibes at his over protective sister and husband,...

Chapter One When I first met Tony Gardiner he seemed to have mastered life. At least, that is what I thought, being somewhat younger and still not master of my own. If I had to guess I would say he was somewhere in his late thirties, though at times he did look older. Tony was one of those men born handsome and then got better looking each year. He had a way of saying the right thing at the right time, and he was especially lucky with women. Mutual friends confirmed certain details - that h...

I did not expect to find you here not this pitiful place not here soaked in blood these young men these bodies these cries not be sung not sung never mourned no mother’s kiss no lover’s mouth again sweet breath morning light no touch my skilled hands with dirty dressing soothing words and you did you come for me or for them or us I cried out I did as we touched the sand and I saw them face down in the mud pleading eyes I am only one man one man among so many I might save if ...

Chapter One When I first met Tony Gardiner he seemed to have mastered life. At least, that is what I thought, being somewhat younger and still not master of my own. If I had to guess I would say he was somewhere in his late thirties, though at times he did look older. Tony was one of those men born handsome and then got better looking each year. He had a way of saying the right thing at the right time, and he was especially lucky with women. Mutual friends confirmed certain details - that h...

There's a place called the Monmouth Museum up behind the Garden State Arts Center in New Jersey. In 1970, it was nothing more than an old stone house with some local photos and relics on display, but the grounds had a wildflower field and a beautiful pine forest of 20 acres. As kids, we would go there to get stoned and camp with our girlfriends. Holmdel was still a rural town back then, with only two cops, so after dark the museum grounds became our own private estate. And since it borde...

Dear Ms. Einstein, GADABOUT (Literary Fiction, 74,500 words) delivers a story of loss and redemption. Set in the French West Indies in 1989, this first person narrative follows a young man’s struggle with the past and a future suddenly laid before him. Legend has it that the wooden sailing ketch Gadabout was built to show seven lost sailors the way home. The original owner and builder are not known. She was never officially registered and caught fire and sank not long after her sevent...

Chitra By some miracle she had made it all the way to Calcutta. The kindness of strangers, most of them older women, brought tears each time she remembered small gestures. They knew why she was running – it was unspoken. Several times her uncle had almost caught up with her, the pig. Her coward of a father had sent him. It made no sense, but nothing men did made sense. Whenever she thought of her family her body went numb and a queer tension formed on her brow. It had not been hard to f...