My newest novel is called Snow Babies. It is not published yet, but I am not worried. It is the best thing I’ve ever written, and it will endure even if no one ever lowers themselves to actually reading it. The portrait here is the main character, Valerie Elaine Clarke, the most beautiful girl ever born in Norwall, Iowa (the fictional version of the town I grew up in, rural, farm town, population 275). She and her mother have moved to town and left farming behind because Valerie’s father… shudder… lost the farm for unpaid FHA loans, and then killed… but you don’t want to hear about that. She is a vibrant, sassy, and open-hearted girl living in a 1984 world of skateboards, rock and roll, and stupid people that do all kinds of stupid things. Right before the December blizzard hits, she sees a homeless wanderer, a hobo, on Main Street. The guy doesn’t know a bad storm is coming. He wears a jacket made of crazy quilt material, all colorful patches and quilted stitching. Valerie can’t let the poor man freeze to death, can she? And her and her mother live in a modest three-bedroom home even though there are only two people living there. She will ask her mother if they can take him in during the storm, and maybe asked if she can keep him.
Silly, right? I’ve told people that this is a comedy novel about freezing to death, complete with clowns. But, to be honest, it’s probably more about not freezing to death, and how a small community can come together to face a big problem, namely, a killer of a blizzard. So, if you like comedies laced with tragedy, filled with bad snow metaphors, and stupid people doing stupid things with consequences both good and bad, then you should be looking for the novel Snow Babies… or running away screaming… I know it’s one of those.
I included a shot of my latest paffooney held by my daughter, the Princess. Valerie is a combination of a girl I grew up with in Iowa, a girl I once taught in a small town in Texas, and a certain young lady who gets referred to repeatedly as “the Princess”.
Catch a Falling Star 