Bøger af Michael J Cooper

After three failed marriages, Nelson DeMarco figured his chances at love were exhausted. Then a South African sweetheart named Charlotte enters his life. Suddenly his semi-successful law practice begins making profits. Her construction business takes off. All seems to be on the rise. Until Markey re-enters his life. Wife number one. A serious auto accident and she wants Nelson to represent her. Then Nelson's brother, Oliver, shows up at his door owing money from gambling debts...to a local judge no less. The Charlotte's former lover reasserts himself. Then a close friend develops cancer. A mundane, provincial average life suddenly goes haywire as complication compounds complication. Can love survive the stress of events? Can Nelson survive the lure of his gorgeous ex? Can Charlotte forget her past dalliances? Will Oliver resolve his obligations? Will the friend survive? Will there ever be such thing as normal again?

Eddie Carlton is a successful building contractor in Jacksonville, Florida. He is well respected, happily married and in demand. Then, in his mid-life, his wife dies from cancer, the economy collapses, he gets sued for the first time in his life, his girl friend is stolen by his lawyer and, to top it off, he then falls in love with the lawyers ex-wife. The litigation consumes him, his disintegrating business overwhelms him and his love life tips him over the edge. He finds himself retreating into confusion and uncertainties that are mitigated by dreams and fantasies. All of the players in this drama finally meet in the trial of the lawsuit with disasterous consequences.

"What little that remains of my past is carried on my back; the rest, by choice, is gone." Thus begins the unique diary of a medieval traveler who has embarked on a journey to pursue the destiny envisioned in his youth but lost in passing years. The unknown author weaves a compelling tale of his spiritual emptiness and his exploration for fulfillment. Joining in this voyage of self-discovery, we witness through his own words the slow metamorphosis of a man who, though once productive, now writes, "My sanity is mine alone...I am sane because I choose to say that I am sane." The evocative entries begin as he forsakes civilization and becomes lost in a great forest. Desperate from hunger and fatigue, he stumbles upon an ancient temple built to honor seven long-forgotten gods once worshiped there. The temple becomes his home and the gods, revived by his presence, slowly become the center of his life, seeming to satisfy his quest for meaning. His diary details his efforts to glorify their memory, preserve their creation story and nurture their egos; yet it also bears witness to the increasing influence these deities exert over him, their last acolyte, as he dedicates himself to their service, and it describes the debilitating challenges imposed on him leaving him vulnerable to divine manipulation. This book offers readers a psychological study of an individual who seeks himself through solitude and then compensates for his loneliness and deprivation through pious excess. Inspired by the spiritual realism of Saramago, Rushdie and Marquez, it teaches us that life often denies any answers and creates no heroes; it's man against himself with no winners.