Missing Ingredients (Book) - 3/18/2014 5:24:39 PM
This is such a real depiction of an abusive alcoholic and how mean they can be, and how they wreck lives. How very very sad.
Missing Ingredients (Book) - 1/18/2014 11:57:42 AM
Lark Pogue and Drew Carpenter have written the quintessential Gothic novel of small-town American dysfunction. A womanizing, wife beating alcoholic, Duane Coulter, is dying from his excesses in a hospital, accompanied by two of his eight wives. The children from three of his wives who haven't seen him in 40 years, or each other for that matter, gather together to support the primary mother of the children, Rose. They also feel a need to find each other and try to get to the bottom of why their lives have gone so wrong. It is one thing to be poor and looked down upon by everyone in the small town that you live, it is another to have a father that destroys every happy moment one could think of and finds that it is normal to subject his children to adult responsibilities when he himself is irresponsible.
Each of the siblings has a story to tell of how they view their father and recall events that occurred in the past, conveniently entered as flashbacks that in no way impede the flow of the story, but enhance it. As I read I noted that although I grew up in an entirely different part of the country, all the things that were happening and even the language that is quite graphic at times were very familiar for the time period. Stories like The Godfather, successful because of the romance of the mysterious Mafia and its underpinnings in organized crime, are no more important than stories like this that should be told and even portrayed on the movie screen like Grapes of Wrath to show how that, for some, the 1950s and 60s were not as wonderful as American Graffiti would make them seem.
For those interested in families and surviving trauma, this is an excellent book. I am highly recommending the book for the way that it is written and the story that it tells. Please pick up and read Missing Ingredients if you get the chance. You will learn something about human nature and how to survive under difficult circumstances.
About The Rapture (Book) - 8/27/2013 8:43:49 AM
I found this book to be a nonstop adventure, with likeable characters and a fun storyline. I hope to see more from this author!
About The Rapture (Book) - 8/25/2013 6:02:52 AM
I could not put this book down.... The characters are hilarious and witty . I hope there will be a sequel.
About The Rapture (Book) - 8/14/2013 4:39:30 PM
Laughed all the way through and kept thinking it would make a great movie!
About The Rapture (Book) - 8/11/2013 5:58:17 AM
This is truly one of the wittiest, and at the same time, great message-bearing book I have read.
L
The Color of Conscience (Short Story) - 8/7/2014 7:18:17 AM
Terrific, Drew. Children really do complicate lives in gritty ways. Glad you could sort this episode out so well ...
The Art of Bonsai (Short Story) - 5/3/2014 9:59:24 AM
LOVE it! Speaks for all parents, or at least almost all.
Salvation is Elusive (Short Story) - 5/3/2014 9:12:30 AM
Sad; mothers carry too much guilt, even when they have done their best.
Angel in the Details (Short Story) - 5/3/2014 8:59:53 AM
Great story. The reality of what happens in old age for so many is hard to deal with but people need help as long as they're alive and I'm glad there are those who can do it.
Angel in the Details (Short Story) - 3/18/2014 5:21:44 PM
I read Angel in the Details and thought it was wonderful writing.
Angel in the Details (Short Story) - 3/18/2014 12:12:10 PM
Sad but true. As our family members age & pass we are all confronted by our own emotions and fears of loss.
Angel in the Details (Short Story) - 1/6/2014 8:06:09 PM
That's a sad sad condition for you to experience with a loved one.
The Color of Conscience (Short Story) - 1/6/2014 7:51:52 PM
That's a good story & I can just picture walking in the store & doing what Eddie & his mom were going thru. I remember the store. I love it. When you read a story that can make you relate to things in your life is a good thing I think. Well done.Drew
Angel in the Details (Short Story) - 12/9/2013 7:25:54 AM
I know that you have some experience with this. That's probably why it is so realistic and sheds light on a problem that seems to be growing. My grandmother had Alzheimer's starting at 85. At her 85th birthday party, she was able to listen in on three conversations going on around her and comment on all of them. She read all the books in at least three libraries.
After that birthday, she deteriorated and my uncle put her in a nursing hospital. She grew ever more religious, perhaps reverting to a safer place, dogma she learned at an early age. Early on when I visited her in the hospital, she knew me and even jumped up on a stool--she wasn't supposed to--and got me something he wanted to show me. Later, she just stared with her cataract eyes and smiled, eating when she was fed. My uncle said she seemed to have a purpose… When she died, at 90, my father and another brother reconciled… Perhaps that was her purpose for holding on so long.
Ron
Angel in the Details (Short Story) - 12/9/2013 5:28:32 AM
I don't think it was all that enjoyable, although it was very readable and written well. I thought it was very realistic and very sad. The story pained me. It delved deeply into the problem of old age and dying and loss of memory, loss of everything in days to come.
Angel in the Details (Short Story) - 12/9/2013 4:18:49 AM
a very enjoyable tale
budd
The Art of Bonsai (Short Story) - 12/3/2013 5:38:47 AM
Lark has told me of your writing. This is the first and I've read. Like the patience and detail required to bonsai, your writing is meticulous and detailed to a point I could never achieve. I have never done bonsai. The closest I've come to that art was buying a pruning book and then managing my plants with as few cuts as possible because I love things growing wild.
Hence, the ending to your story. I do not have children but if I had, I would take a lesson from my parents who always let me run wild and make my own mistakes so that I was responsible at a very early age and never had any regrets about how I lived my life as a result. I can only guess by the way my nieces and nephews have developed that my brothers and sister were equally free with their children and didn't prune too much their lives growing up.
Some of the best writing I've seen here.
Ron
The Art of Bonsai (Short Story) - 12/3/2013 3:26:51 AM
very enjoyable
budd
Barflies (Short Story) - 11/18/2013 4:07:00 AM
i enjoyed this
budd
Barflies (Short Story) - 11/17/2013 8:35:34 AM
If pickups were only that easy… I did find this little interplay quite intriguing. My mother told me never to trust a girl I met in a bar. My uncle ran off with a barmaid. They both left five children behind without a mother and father.
Well written and interesting.
Ron
Barflies (Short Story) - 11/17/2013 5:00:49 AM
Heh.Heh That is why I never went looking for love (okay lust) with another guy. It gets too complicated, and sometimes turns into trouble. You had the dialogue crisp and perfect, Drew. Enjoyed this.
The Color of Conscience (Short Story) - 7/16/2013 9:20:02 AM
A truly wonderful story, Drew. It drew me in for many reasons, but I think the biggest reason was that I related so well to it. I come from a small town in Arkansas, population around seven hundred and has been that for many years. When I was growing up there wasn't even paved roads. I can sure relate to that that baloney and the Dr. Pepper. I remember the baloney that we got in the only grocery store in town had a rough texture and was so good, there isn't any baloney like that today, that and the hoop cheese.
You have a very good way of easing your readers into your characters lives, and liking or disliking them. The small town tenderness came out in this story and, again, I recollected back to Taylor, Arkansas when the cashier fudged a little on the total bill, but sugar wouldn't have any of it and paid up in full. It is a shame that people don't have a sense of shame when they are on welfare like they used to be, but these days it seems they think it is a right decreed in the constitution.
The race situation also has me remembering south Arkansas in my growing up days. We had what was called "Rankin Town" just outside Taylor where most of the blacks lived in those days. I didn't realize just how bad they were treated until I left home and saw another world I didn't know existed. I remember one horrible incident. I was on the outskirts of the main part of town when I saw a crowd had gathered. I saw a black man in the middle of all those white faces and among the white faces was the sheriff. Suddenly the black man took off running in the general direction of where I stood gawking. I hid behind the little post office and watched as the black man hit the ground in front of a house across the street and belly-walked under it. The sheriff was there by then and bent down and I heard his pistol go off. I took off running back to the house, and told mother about it, but I never did find out what happened to that black guy. I asked my parents and they told me to not talk about it.
I enjoyed this story, Drew.
Holding On To Glass (Short Story) - 7/14/2013 10:59:04 AM
Perfect ending. The pacing in this story was perfect. The story of the glass was the story of their marriage. At first it shone like the rocks, but over time it took on a dullness. About the ending. Again, perfect. Enjoyed reading this.
The Color of Conscience (Short Story) - 4/21/2013 4:21:19 AM
I like this story because it reads like a glimpse into your childhood growing up in Texas. The memories of youthful days are always something good to write about. I did not check for mistakes. The primary scenario is exhilarating and merges efficiently with the plot. The events are painted with dramatic language enlightening what you, the author, desire the reader to visualize. The conversations contain appealing and entrancing banter between the characters, persuading the reader to finish the story. The dialogue between the characters have been perfectly worded. Perfect dialogue displays the love and affection of the author has invested into the characters being created. Using vivid details, brought the pictures and scenes you describe to life to allow the reader to become lost inside your imaginative world. This will really bring back floods of memories for days, months, and years later as the reader reflect on the things experienced within the words of your tale. Every scene have followed the plot closely compelling the reader to travel along to the ending. There are more experienced reviewer than I that can comment and could tell you how to better the write of the story. But in my opinion, this is a good write.
Margaret and David, A Love Story (Article) - 9/27/2013 6:04:11 AM
Sounds like a winner. We need more stories like this to rock the status quo and get people thinking. Unfortunately, people are enamored with endless mysteries, conspiracies, court battles, idyllic romances, action heroes or utter fantasies that have no science in their fiction. They read only “established” authors and mostly time filling pulp for diversion rather than well thought out stories of significance.
If Margaret and David has significance it will be picked up by those interested in significant stories and become classic like Huckleberry Finn. That is the only thing that Jerry can hope for because, unless the novel is splashed all over the headlines, it will not be a bestseller.
I'm way behind in my reading and have promised to read Jerry's autobiography first, so will be some time before I get to Margaret and David. Forgive me.
Ron
