Kindle Edition Amazon Amazon Category:  Literary Fiction Type: Fiction Pages: 251 Copyright: 12/08/2020 ISBN-13: 9781626601567 Price: $2.99 (eBook) A single-father comes of age as he discovers whether it’s love or fatherhood that could save him. Haunted by his mother’s death and a series of serendipitous events from his past, Benjamin Bradford desperately tries to keep his mental illness under control while raising his daughter Sophia. A single-father comes of age as he discovers whether it’s love or fatherhood that could save him. Haunted by his mother’s death and a series of serendipitous events from his past, Benjamin Bradford desperately tries to keep his mental illness under control while raising his daughter Sophia. Set against the iconic streets of Los Angeles, there’s music always playing, heavy therapy sessions and private emails to discern, shattered friendships and betrayal, and the specter of a true love that got away. Think: Silver Linings Playbook meets High Fidelity with a dash of Eighth Grade. Can Benjamin find redemption? Can he escape his demons and find love again? Come along for the ride and find out.          Excerpt 1 THE LIFEBOAT DECEMBER 21, 2007 I’m staring out the waiting room window. An elderly couple is sitting on a bench out front holding hands. The portrait of contentment. Even from this distance, I can see their rheumy eyes still sparkle at each other. They probably finish each other’s sentences. Bundled up in overcoats and fedoras, they look like holdovers from those bygone days when everyone wore hats. As I watch them speak to each other, out of earshot, I get an eerie sense I’m watching a long-ago vision I had come to life about me and a girl I loved. I take out my journal and start jotting down a backstory: It was their first day of college. She was beautiful and out of his league, but he just had to know her. He told her he liked the cool way she walked, and she rolled her eyes. But inside, she felt a spark go off. She came to love the way he talked about music and writing, and whether God exists, especially on those long drives they took up the coast. Plus, she never met anyone else who loved old movies as much as she did. She’d scoff when he told her theirs was a love for the ages, but he never stopped believing it. People asked what their secret was, and they’d smile at each other, and say, “Love is magic and a mystery.” “Benjamin,” a familiar female voice calls out from behind the counter. “Cassandra will see you now.” Ah hell. That old couple probably just met on eHarmony. They buzz me in, and as I walk the long drab hallway indiscernible from any other Kaiser clinic, I’m singing the chorus to the foreboding “Sour Times” by Portishead, still fresh from the car ride over. Nobody loves me. It’s true…nobody loves me… I enter Cassandra’s office and give her a wave. “Hello Benjamin,” she says barely glancing up, her amber eyes hidden by her brown unruly hair. “I’ll be right with you.” As I wait for my long-time therapist to bring up my chart for about the millionth time, I take my usual seat next to the window overlooking the teeming traffic on Washington Boulevard. I look up at the Christmas cards draped from one side of the office to the other. It’s that time of year. The dread and anxiety brought on by the holiday season, and judging by how crowded the waiting room was, business must be booming around here. Nine years ago, I was a wreck. Just trying to keep it together after everything that happened. Someone told me to get some therapy, and I’ve been coming here ever since. Cassandra has a kind of serene and celestial otherness to her. My mom used to say, “There are parts of some people that don’t photograph.” Cassandra’s like that. It’s her warm and forgiving eyes that probably convinced her she’s made for this line of work. Equal parts Spanish and Greek, she comes from one of those big close-knit families. Total opposite of mine. She projects such a reserved and stately persona. It’s funny how she tugs at the end of her sleeve to hide the tattoo of the bird on the back of her wrist. After our first session, I went to hug her portly frame, and she said she doesn’t let her patients do that. So, when we wrap up, we just shake hands like we’ve closed a deal at a power lunch. “So, Benjamin,” Cassandra says turning to face me. “Last time, we were talking about trying not to be so severe with yourself.” “Oh, nothing’s changed,” I say letting out a sigh. “I still feel like I have to keep the storm windows up so nothing crazy comes out.” “We’ve talked about this. There’s your perception, and there’s reality,” she reminds me. A mantra of hers. I lean forward and start rubbing my thighs like I’m sanding down a 2x4. She watches that for a minute then says, “You seem agitated.” “To be honest, I’m pissed off.” “How so?” she asks. “It happened again,” I say. “I mean, I thought I had this.” “What do you mean?” “Well, yesterday,” I begin, “I took off work to get to Sophia’s parent-teacher conference. We get home. I make dinner and help her with her homework. Watch a movie together. Read to her. You know, like, everything. And I get just a tooth brushing away from this perfect night, so I can breathe again, you know? But I see the end in sight, and then when she doesn’t get right in bed, I yelled at her…” I pause to catch myself. “And I look down at her sweet heart-shaped face, and she’s…she’s staring up at me…so confused that her dad just seconds before was happy and joking and…and then boom, something snaps. I mean, I’ve been just beating the shit out of myself ever since.” “Benjamin, kids don’t hold on to these moments like we think they do,” she says in her comforting voice. “A little slip at the end of an otherwise great day? That’s O.K.” “You think I don’t remember watching my mom rocking back and forth, her mouth pressed up against her knees, talking about killing herself? You think I don’t remember her telling me she’d be right back then disappearing for weeks? Believe me. I wish I could forget.” She looks startled, and she pauses to regroup. “Well, remember this,” she says regaining her footing. “Your upbringing was very different. You’re breaking the cycle.” “Sophia doesn’t know that. She just wants her dad to be normal. That’s all any kid wants. Just fucking be there and don’t be a crazy person. If I can’t do that, what good am I?” “But why give yourself so little margin for error?” “Because I’m all Sophie has. I’ve got no backup. No one to play good cop, bad cop with. No one who can tell me I stuck the landing.” “It’s O.K. to admit you’re struggling sometimes. Give yourself a break.” “What am I supposed to say? ‘Sorry, Soph. Losing my shit here. Taking a mental health day today.’” “No, not those exact words,” she says trying to lighten things, “but you can tell her you need a minute, can’t you?” I stare at her not intending to answer because I’ve already moved on to the next thing I want to tell her. I stall-nod while I try to find the words. “It’s like, I live this double life,” I go on. “This world I live outside with Sophia where it feels like I’m holding my breath all the time. Then there’s this place inside where I hear the voices and do battle with all my selves…” I trail off and start tapping the arm of my chair and counting 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. Always in sets of eight. “What if all this insanity I grew up around gets me too? I’m scared it’s going to get passed through me to Sophia.” “Mental illness is not a virus, Benjamin. Sophia can’t catch it. We’ve talked about this.” “It got my mom,” I say pausing. “And I keep thinking, what if Sophia would be better off without me?” “Come on, Benjamin,” she says sounding exasperated. “You don’t really believe that.” We stop to stare at each other. Something we do a lot of until someone can’t take the silence anymore. I cave first. “You know what the great irony is?” I ask. “All that chaos and craziness I grew up around? That’s what gives me the drive to do this. I’ve gotta prove those fuckers didn’t destroy me.” “Then use it,” she urges. “It’s yours, isn’t it?” “The thing is,” I say pausing to find the right words. “I’ve crafted this persona of having overcome and sacrificed so much. You know, this poor guy who weathered tragedy and came out the other side? And I’m, like, ‘Don’t worry about me. That’s all behind me now. I’ve got this.’ To admit I’m still deep down in it and barely holding on? That’d ruin the narrative.” “Well, even here,” she says, “whenever we wrap up, you give me a smile, and we do our handshake, and you tell me you’re good.” “Classic people pleaser, right? Leave it to the crazy person to make sure the therapist doesn’t have to worry.” She lets out a little chuckle, then turns silent again. “I just can’t shake this feeling I’ve always had,” I go on, starting to sand down my thighs again. “This feeling of dread. This feeling like the other shoe is about to drop. I just, I can’t let what happen to me happen to Sophia.” “But that’s your journey. Don’t project that onto her,” she says - another of her mantras. “Benjamin, we’ve talked about needing to stay in the moment.” “You have kids,” I shoot back. “You know when you become a parent, you can’t live in the moment anymore. You’ve gotta live in the future so they can live in the moment.” “Well, let’s just focus on what’s right here,” she says trying to shift directions. “Have you given any thought about dating yet?” “No. I just…no,” I answer. “I gotta get Sophia into the lifeboat first.” She squints at me. “What do you mean, the lifeboat?” “My whole life, I had this image of a lifeboat that was just floating there within reach, but I could never get in until everyone else got in first.” “But don’t you get to be saved?” “Growing up, everyone’s problems always seemed so much worse, so I was, like, ‘Here. You get in. I’ll just swim.’” I look out the window again. I can feel her studying me. “Benjamin?” “I just, I couldn’t save her,” I finally say. “Couldn’t save who?” “My mom. I couldn’t get her in the lifeboat in time. I’ve just gotta hold on long enough so I can get Sophia in one. I just have to.” Cassandra glances at her watch and grimaces. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we’re out of time. Can we pick this up next time?” “It’s O.K. I gotta go pick up Sophia. I can’t be late again.”

An emotionally powerful but structurally awkward novel about a troubled man's quest for redemption.
"See offers a novel about a mentally ill man seeking inner peace while raising a young daughter.
Los Angeles veterinary technician Benjamin Bradford feels as if he's living a double life. On the one hand, he does his job well and manages to successfully take care of his child, Sophia; on the other, he's persistently struggling with the stress of mental illness--"this place inside, where I hear the voices and do battle with all my selves." Bradford shares his thoughts with Cassandra,the therapist he's been seeing for nine years, whom he describes as having "a kind of serene and celestial otherness to her." In his sessions, he worries about his ability to raise a daughter in a healthy environment when he constantly feels like he could lose control; indeed, he berates himself for every time he's raised his voice to Sophia despite his therapist's advice that he cut himself some slack. This is difficult for Bradford to do, as mental illness runs in his family, afflicting both his mother and his grandmother, and his father disappeared from his life when he was very young, giving him tense, ambivalent feelings about fatherhood: "A father," he reflects at one point, "is a ghost, someone who walks out on you, and leaves a hole in your heart." When Bradford receives an invitation to the wedding of his best friend, Keith Ramsey, and his former love, Anna Robertson,he's engulfed by memories of their shared college days in the 1990s. Pleasant recollections lead to traumatic ones, which add further depth to this heavily retrospective novel.
See carefully and skillfully balances the present and past in his narrative, although the prolonged flashbacks inevitably slow the present-day storyline's momentum. As tensions mount between father and daughter, and as Sophia rebels against Bradford's moodiness and caution, readers are treated to dramatic scenes with powerful exchanges: "Just because you have no friends and no life, doesn't mean you can force me to stay home and watch you be miserable," Sophia says at one point. "Why can't you just let me live my life?" But as well-written as these scenes are, they have to perform double duty; they not only need to move readers emotionally, but also extract them from long stretches of 1990s-set narrative, which get lost in excessive period trivia. It's tough to balance a delicate portrayal of a father-daughter dynamic amid seemingly endless references to the Beastie Boys, Roxy Music, Nirvana, mixtapes, and boom boxes, although See generally manages to succeed, nonetheless. That said, readers will find that even two-thirds of the way into the book, very little has happened to present-day Bradford, who's still at the same job, still talking to the same therapist, still having occasional flare-ups with his daughter, and still pining after the lost Anna. Although the author is an unfailingly energetic guide, some readers will likely wish that the narrative had a bit more get-up-and-go.
An emotionally powerful but structurally awkward novel about a troubled man's quest for redemption."- Kirkus Reviews