Welcome to familyandfiction.com
It all started with my father. That is, trying to unearth the life of my father through the process of writing a novel. Originally entitled Life Expectancy, until I discovered that the best selling novelist Dean Koontz had written a book with that title.
New title: Tracking the Human: nobody’s a long time. Why did I choose Tracking the Human? That describes the arc of the story, trying to follow a man in his struggle to be human. The main character of the novel, Lew, is based on my father, Lon. The novel tells an “everyman” story of life in the USA in the early to mid twentieth century of someone trying to grab life and live large. Many men (and they were mostly men) rode the rails, joined the hobo culture, and were in and out of jails for vagrancy and drugs. The life of my father (and the protagonist of Tracking the Human, Lew) was unique in that he went from federal prison to state mental hospital to becoming a successful businessman.
For the blog, I decided not to use the book title Tracking the Human, although my main motivation for starting this blog is the book. The blog will be about the book and more… about the process of investigation, research, reading and writing related to the book and beyond.
My motivation in writing the novel Tracking the Human was trying to understand hidden events in my family and influence outcomes for future generations. I am searching for reconciliation with a dead man and his father before him and for the generations that follow.
Through blogging at Family and Fiction, I am thinking, writing, sharing ideas about the inter-relationship of history, documented facts, fiction and family.
Why do you write?
Why do you blog?
Your comments are welcome.
Thank you.
Note: the photo identifying this blog is of fence art by Gabriel Collett
Tracking the Human: nobody's a long time 