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|  | | Autumn Shadows in August
Modeled roughly on Malcolm Lowry's "Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid," Robert W. Norris's "Autumn Shadows in August" is part homage to Lowry and Hermann Hesse, part mushroom retrospective, and part middle-aged love story. David Thompson is an expatriate American teaching at a Japanese university and suffering from hepatitis C. His wife Kaori is recovering from cancer surgery. Feeling a strong sense of their own mortality, confusion about the significance of what they have done with their lives, and a need to escape the constrictions of their life in Japan, the two set out on a journey to Europe to retrace a path from David's adventurous youth and locate a German benefactor from the past. What lies ahead--a trip through the Magic Theater, a sudden death, an encounter with Lowry's ghost, and a descent into the Capuchin Crypt in Rome--will change their lives irrevocably.
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center>Chapter 2/b>/center>
We were at Central Station by eight buying round-trip tickets to Alkmaar. It was a thirty-minute ride. We watched the flat, expansive, green landscape with many trees fly by outside the train window. Canals criss-crossed the land here and there. We saw many clean, orderly, brick houses. Dairy cows, sheep, and horses huddled in groups and grazed in the fields.
There was a large crowd of tourists at the cheese market. Kaori took many pictures of the round, thirty-three-kilogram blocks of cheese being stacked, checked for quality, then ca | |  | | Looking for the Summer
A Vietnam War conscientious objector's adventures and search for identity on the road from Paris to Calcutta in 1977.
David Thompson is a former Vietnam War conscientious objector in Paris on a quest to find himself in the early days of 1977. When he befriends an Iranian and an Afghan and is invited to return with them to their countries, his quest slowly becomes a descent into his own private hell. On the road from Europe to the East he encounters Kurdish bandits in the eastern mountains of Turkey, becomes involved with an underground group opposed to the Shah in Iran, escapes to Afghanistan, passes through Pakistan during the uprising against the Bhutto regime, and suffers extreme sickness on the streets of | |  | | The Many Roads to Japan
Originally a free online ESL textbook/reader about a war resister's search for identity, "The Many Roads to Japan" is now available as a paperback from Lulu.com.
The story is about a Vietnam War conscientious objector's adventures and search for identity over a 14-year period. In the online version there are many links, pictures, questions, and the author's reading of answers. PDF, HTML, and Rocket downloads. Good for self, group, CALL, and peace study. Aimed at low intermediate and above ESL students, but native speakers will enjoy the story, too. About 20,000 words. The URL is http://www2.gol.com/users/norris/roadsdownload.html | |  | | Toraware
A psychological drama about the obsessive relationship of three misfits from different cultures and backgrounds in 1980s Kobe, Japan.
Synopsis: The year is 1983. The place is the Kobe-Osaka area. A 33-year-old American drifter has just arrived in Japan seeking one more adventure and an escape from his past. A promiscuous and suicidal 23-year-old Japanese woman has just returned from a two-year homestay in a Canadian mission. A snobbish, 22-year-old Japanese virgin is about to graduate from university and enter the frightening world of adulthood. Three people searching for a place to belong. Three people dancing on a psychological highwire. Three people about to become enmeshed in a relationship that will change each of their |
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