Once Upon A LieMichael French
Paperback: Perfect bound, 378 pages, 5-1/2" x 8-1/2" ISBN 978-1-938288-65-4 We encourage you to buy this title from your local bookstore. Use this link to find bookstores in your area. Amazon $26.95 Barnes & Noble $26.95 Ebook: Amazon $9.99 ISBN 978-1-938288-66-1 Barnes & Noble $9.99 ISBN 978-1-938288-67-8 Preview
Twelve-year-old Jaleel is on the run after the police in his tiny Texas town try to frame him for the death of his father. A world away, Alexandra (known as “Alex”) is growing up amid all the material comforts a wealthy Los Angeles lawyer can provide. One day, a simple cup of lemonade unites their lives, leading to a maze of adultery and murder that shatters Alex’s youthful innocence and Jaleel’s struggle to reshape his life. While the forces of the law try to unravel the mysterious death—or at least find a scapegoat—the two youths see the trajectories of their lives entwine, unravel, and come together again. Justice, Alex learns, can be a strange and nebulous thing, easily enmeshed in webs of loyalty and betrayal. Justice, Jaleel finds, can be a powerful—but dangerous—rock on which to build a life of honor and courage. As their stories play out over the years in cities far apart, best-selling author Michael French fills the world of Alex and Jaleel with a cast of vivid characters both supporting and threatening their efforts to build a life that “works” amid the expectancies of others and their own conflicting drives. About the Author Friends of Michael French describe him as a “hyperactive omnivore,” (a charge he admits to) feeding on politics, art, capitalism, religion, history, travel, and popular culture. The late night Stanford University bull sessions of decades ago have been replaced by long dinners at ethnic restaurants where conversations are kept at reasonable decibels. But the subjects remain pretty much the same. (OK, throw in technology.) Travel hooked him early, when he went from Hollywood High School to Switzerland as a foreign exchange student. As Mark Twain wrote, travel is fatal to bigotry and prejudice, and French’s first trip abroad opened his mind to “the diverse history, art, literature, and cultures of people that don’t always like being next to each other--but then no one had told me about India.” After receiving an English degree from Stanford and a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University, he was drafted into the Army and became editor of the post newspaper—“a two-year, tuition-free education about bureaucracy and humanity.” His first “real job” after that--meaning making more than $1 an hour--was with a public relations firm in New York City, writing annual reports for Fortune 500 companies, “which was not as dull as it sounds. I learned about capitalism,” French says, “the good and the bad.” He and his wife, Patricia, moved to Santa Fe in 1978, and started a real estate company and a family. Squeezing in writing time whenever he could, he published his first novel, a best-seller, Abingdon’s, with Doubleday in 1979. “My father always said one needed a work ethic to be successful,” French recalls. “But I didn’t know that would mean having three jobs--the real estate company, raising children, and writing--for the next two decades.” He and Patricia still found time to take their two children to Australia, Africa, Indonesia, and Europe. At some point, children become teenagers and want nothing to do with parents or travel, but Michael and Pat persisted on their course and have now visited seventy-two countries. For French, ideas for books come at unexpected times--visiting a hill village in Myanmar, a seventeen-hour plane haul on which sleep-deprived hallucinations can briefly turn you into a genius, or sometimes just a bite on a blueberry muffin (Proust’s madeleine!). Ideas also come from listening to a friend describe his disintegrating marriage, a visit to a DeKooning exhibit at MoMA, or a late night screening of Fellini’s “Juliette of the Spirits.” The best writing ideas are never forced, French believes, and need to be strong enough to keep you going for long stretches of time. Shaping characters and plot into a meaningful read is often dark, clandestine toil,“like working for the CIA. Best not to tell anyone what you’re writing--in many instances, they wouldn’t get it anyway.” Sometimes, French admits, he doesn’t understand why anyone is drawn to the craft as a career. “Think of a blackboard covered with a twenty-line mathematical equation, the kind Matt Damon solves in what feels like three seconds in “Good Will Hunting” but utterly mystifies and demoralizes the rest of us—“solving” the many problems that come with completing a book is not so different. Many books are finished on a near-empty tank and with a flourish of masochism before there’s a sense of triumph. Then you give your book to a literary-minded friend and ask for his opinion--really, don’t do that. Stick it in a drawer for a while and have a rewrite or two, then show it to someone who can be honest while appreciating how much effort you’ve put into this.” French’s work, which includes several best-sellers, has been warmly reviewed in the New York Times and been honored with a number of literary prizes. |
About the BookTwelve-year-old Jaleel is on the run after the police in his tiny Texas town try to frame him for the death of his father. A world away, Alexandra (known as "Alex") is growing up amid all the material comforts a wealthy Los Angeles lawyer can provide. One day, a simple cup of lemonade unites their lives, leading to a maze of adultery and murder that shatters Alex’s youthful innocence and Jaleel’s struggle to reshape his life.
While the forces of the law try to unravel the mysterious death—or at least find a scapegoat—the two youths see the trajectories of their lives entwine, unravel, and come together again. Justice, Alex learns, can be a strange and nebulous thing, easily enmeshed in webs of loyalty and betrayal. Justice, Jaleel finds, can be a powerful—but dangerous—rock on which to build a life of honor and courage. As their stories play out over the years in cities far apart, best-selling author Michael French fills the world of Alex and Jaleel with a cast of vivid characters both supporting and threatening their efforts to build a life that “works” amid the expectancies of others and their own conflicting drives. |
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