Saturday, October 7, 2017

Musclewood: a Labor of Love Revisited

In 2014, I set aside a mostly finished manuscript into which I had poured my heart. A dark but hopeful tale, and the reasons I stepped away from it were very personal, but it was something to which I knew I would always return. That's the way of things, after all. Our truth will always call us back home.

It needs an overhaul, and it'll take time. Anything worthwhile does. I'll keep you posted along the way, and as always, I'm grateful to have your support as I sojourn. To those of you beside me when I was living this--2012-2014--you have my thanks, and my heart, as ever.

Here's the opening. Musclewood.




“In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.” 
Czesław Miłosz




​Buried things, it seems, have a knack for not remaining so.

In 1978, the small, Midwest town of Jacksonburg having agreed by democratic majority to submerge itself, watched as the Serpent River was dammed and its banks spilled over and flooded the entire municipality.  Once a prime source of commerce and life, the river now became an angel of death, consuming the town with indifference.  Sherriff’s deputies had performed a walk-through the evening prior, to ensure every living soul had in fact been evacuated. No official report exists confirming the result; one may perhaps assume in this town numbering fewer than 2000 souls, one gone missing would have been noteworthy, or perhaps even floated to the surface.