Some Background (if you haven't been scared off)

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My Father Bleeds History (hi Art)

My father intended to write a book, shopped it around to a few people then died suddenly. I then found a magazine (What it is Weekly) willing to publish parts of it but by that time I had lost the files in question. Recent unearthing of old computers for purposes of playing early video games has caused the unearthing of his texts. Incomplete and rough though they may be they are a link to a time and place far nearer than we think. They are the memories that form a thread, however strained and frayed that leads unbroken across the seas and decades. Here is his preface.

FISHING WITH SHARON

About This Book

Contents

Fishing With Sharon is a collection of short stories, vignettes from the life of a family, as seen from the perspective of the eldest of the five children. The family is technically “working poor” but lives in grinding poverty by today’s standards. The stories have the insight of a precocious child and the morbidity of undiagnosed manic depression, yet they also contain the irrepressible glow of optimism and humor borne of innocence and family love.

To date, approximately twenty stories have been drafted, with a further half-dozen in the pipeline. (these along with some poems were never finished B. Their unfinished forms may be posted here at some point) They follow the life of the family during a six-year period in which the boy grows from age six to age twelve, while “the village”, initially a vibrant neighborhood in an area of abandoned mills, is demolished by the local government and the family is relocated. The child escapes both the neighborhood and the town by competitive examination to a boys’ grammar school in a neighboring town. Yet ultimately, the death of an old lady binds him forever to the now-deserted village.

The stories take the form of individual adventures and are largely self-contained. The central plot is subtle and I am still of two minds whether to weave in a stronger central plot, fearing that it may appear to be too contrived. I would welcome your thoughts on this matter. At present, all of the names used in the stories are those of the actual characters and need to be changed.

Readership

This book is enjoyed by teenagers as an adventure story and by adults as an historical chronicle of working class life in post-WWII England. It brings comfort to parents of children known or suspected to suffer from depression or manic depression; and presents a triumph of innocence to the general public.

International sales potential is expected to be significant, although the Lancashire dialect that I have removed for the American market might have to be reinserted for the English market.

(The unexpurgated version is being posted here so some will be in Lancashire dialect some will not. Some names have been changed others have not. If anyone complains I will take down/edit/alter the information as needed as I do not at present have any of the contact information necessary nor to I have any knowledge of who the principal characters in the story are besides my father and his immediate family. Besides, most of the people are unrecognizable or dead.)