Secret Wish

Her rosebud cheeks and dancing eyes gleamed against the soft glow in the dark room. Hushed whispers of anticipation all around her and she sucked in with a mighty pull, hesitated briefly and then blew as hard as she could.

The room exploded with laughter and clapping but her face was troubled as the lights came on.

“Mommy.” She pleaded, glaring at the single candle still burning.

“That’s ok baby, her mother said. “Eight’s a lot; just keep the wish secret.”

“That’s right,” her father said. “You tell and it won’t come true.”

Then she opened presents from her parents and their friends and each gift came with a declaration from her father.

“Was that your wish peaches?” He would ask.

“No, but thank you very much Mr. and Mrs. So and so.”

Her mother was cleaning the party mess that evening when the door cracked and the air went dead and still. Her father always brought the air when he came alone. He talked to her in his evil softness and touched her leg and she pretended to sleep; all the while hating the lie of her mother. She hadn’t told a soul her wish, not even God.

Kirschbaum’s Folly

Kirschbaum placed the flowers on the bedside table closest to the window and pondered their varied, colorful life as he listened to the raspy breath behind him. The sigh from his mouth was deep as he turned and sat down to face the dying old man lying withered and sleeping in the only bed of this tight, white, and sterile room.

He felt stupid now; foolish really. The selfish thoughts early this morning seemed so petty but as he tried to pry them away from his mind they only dug in deeper. He had met his birthday morning with one desperate wish: if getting back at least half of his fifty years on this earth carried a price he would pay it smiling. Kirschbaum had sat drinking tea at his kitchen table wanting only the ability to peel back the errors in judgment, lost opportunities, things he had said or didn’t say, and roll them up like a tired old carpet and toss them in the dumpster.

These thoughts made the morning unique only for the fact it was the day of his birth and the wistful feeling he normally had when accounting all the misplaced steps in his past a fire-stoked fervor to truly make it so had replaced it. Kirscbaum had sat there drinking his tea with the lavender ’For My Loving Husband’ birthday card his wife had left for him tossed in the trash, and had come to one startling, undeniable conclusion about his life.

“The square root of fuck all,” he thought in his balance and ledger trained mind, is the very existence I open my eyes to each day. He rose up then, washed his cup in the sink and placed it in the strainer to dry and walked out the door.

He gazed now at the dry old face that slept deep before him and realized, with the clarity of an afternoon sun breaking through the last cloud, his folly. He looked at the familiar face and could almost see his lips moving, and hear the lightly winking voice of the man in his head. “Regret; useless thing to bother with, only thing it does is build more of the same and all you can do is carry it with you on your back.” Kirschbaum stared am him and since they were alone, laughed out loud and clapped his hands together with delighted guilt.

He thought then of the lavender card lying with mocking disdain in the trash and decided he would leave and get home early to get it out, dust it off and place it on their chest of drawers. He would, in fact, end this silliness today. This doe-eyed girl and motels paid in cash held nothing but further regret over him. If the square root of fuck all was his life then he would live it, and live it as well as he could, for as long as he could. And infidelity could not bring back a dead son.

Kirschbaum stood and after briefly brushing the fresh flowers with his hand, kissed the sleeping old man on the forehead thinking how strange it was to be the last walking, living person, with his name.

“I’ll bring Maggie with me tomorrow brother,” he said, “if you’re up for it, maybe we’ll play some checkers.”

At Your Service- Flash Fiction

It’s an old joke in Hollywood and I hate the fucking thing.

Meathead on the street: “So what do you do?”

Me: “I’m an actor.”

Meathead on the street: “Really, that’s great…what restaurant?”

Of course I wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t true and fifteen years ago, when I came to town walking tall and assured of success and didn’t mind working at Salby’s; living off tips and a free meal every shift, I actually thought the joke was pretty funny. But that was fifteen years ago. And I’ll tell you riding the wave of artistic promise on a surfboard of poverty is one hell of a lot more interesting at twenty five than it is at forty! I’m not complaining though, not really. You get used to things. Noodles in a Styrofoam cup, dumpster diving for the last issue of Variety so you can read it on a sidewalk bench pretending to be idly unconcerned with money while urging the cell phone in your pocket to ring turns into habit; and the weather is always nice.

But I hate the fucking joke now and not only because I still work at Salby’s but because the bastards say it laughing with this snide look of ” Oh look, another wanna be movie star,” and then go back to their inspired lives filled with margin calls and debt to income ratio’s. Not that these people aren’t necessary. The world would, I’m sure, start turning counter clockwise if they weren’t around to keep everything greased right but they don’t have a fucking clue as to what I do or why I do it. I mean, when they say, “I’m an investment banker,” I don’t say, “Really, that’s great…what racist, tee-time making, tennis pro fucking country club?” I don’t judge is all I’m saying.

When they make their little joke I’ll try and recognize them and recall if it’s someone I had at table six, or nine or whatever and remember if I had to recommend a wine for them because they wouldn’t know a Pinot from a ping –pong ball or if they were a send-backer; one of those glorious folks that send back their meals mostly because they can and not because there was really anything wrong with it. I never reply back with anything really snippy though, even considering after fifteen years of hindsight I have about ten thousand pretty funny little comebacks to that particular joke. Nope, I just smile and work on one of my laughs, ( I have created over twenty-five types of laughs through my studies) and walk away knowing they’ll never know what being alive really is.

They’ll spend all their lives trying to figure out exactly who “they” are. Most likely just in time to avoid their third heart attack or write some boring memoir only their families will read, or after they watch their castles get repossessed when the deal of a lifetime goes south. Most likely they’ll still be searching for it when they jump off into the cold black nothing of nevermore.

So I let them have their joke as I spend my life zipping up into the suit of anyone else but me. I already know who the fuck I am. That’s why I walk up to their tables and say, “Good evening, my name is Trey (It’s my fourth name and my agent thinks it’s the best one yet) and I’ll be your server this evening.” And I’ll bring them their fillets and shrimp cocktails and listen to them call me “waiter” even though I’ve already told them my fucking name and wear a nametag on my pressed shirt reminding them for chrissakes!

I do all this so I can live. So I can crawl into the belly of the bum on the street, or the race-car driver, or petulant college student, (I’m really very much younger looking than I am) or disillusioned congressman with a deadly secret, or crazed painter on the verge of greatness. Their patronizing politeness and twenty dollar tip on a two-hundred dollar tab or stupid joke on their way into their corporate raiding, middle-class screwing job in some glass tower is a small price to pay for these moments of singular perfection, when I am completely submerged in the fictitious mind of someone I have only just met. After their dinners they will be entertained and remember me and I will not judge them because one day I may find myself inside their skin.

Super duper short fiction

Still playing around with this new form my marvelous, talented friend Heather Fowler (Blatent plug! http://www.myspace.com/fowlerhm) who writes like an angel, turned me onto. Not sure if it suits my natural, overwhelming love of my own voice but I’m giving it a go for awhile.

Two more very, very, very short pieces today.

Decisions

I asked her what she wanted to do now but she only stood outside the bathroom door staring at the plastic stick still wet with her own urine. Her eyes were wide as she looked at me and hurled the thing at my head. It landed with the single pink line visible in the clear plastic bubble. She closed the bathroom door crying and we spent the night mourning on opposite sides of the door.

Addicted to Hope

After pushing the thought away all day I finally called him and met him on the corner. He was greasy and happy to see me. Moments later- in the dark empty stairwell- I thought, “Last time…just a taste.” Then the needle poured out hope for tomorrow as I sank it into my pulsing vein…today.

Saving the Turtles

Leatherback sea turtles survived the dinosaurs, but they might not survive the next few decades of unsustainable industrial fishing unless we act to reduce threats to their survival immediately.

Submit your public comment today to support critical habitat designation for leatherback sea turtles in the Pacific Ocean!

The population of critically endangered leatherback sea turtles in the Pacific Ocean has plummeted over 90% in the past few decades, primarily due to sea turtles drowning in industrial longline and gillnet fisheries.

But there’s hope: several prominent conservation organizations petitioned the government to designate the waters off the coast of California and Oregon as critical habitat for leatherbacks under the Endangered Species Act – and the government has opened a public comment period to consider this petition.

We have until February 26th to submit official comments in support of this critical habitat designation. Let the National Marine Fisheries Service know you support designating critical habitat for endangered leatherback sea turtles!

Please take a moment and copy this petition link to sign the guestbook! Feel free to pass it along to others as well! Thanks
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/232904584?z00m=13718668

Micro Flash Fiction

Working In Hollywood

From behind his oak desk, with the towers of a city built on dreams behind him he said firmly, “Make him mid thirties, and white… and make her hate him.”

I borrowed confidence and replied, “The story is about his age, the projects and unrequited love… it’s what we cling to.”

“I cling to this contract you signed.” He said blankly. “My talent is white and pretends to still be thirty.”

“No sweat.” I said.

Full Circle

It is so warm in the womb. Life giving life and is certainly one of the best things they do. I think of this and struggle to keep warm in my cold, sterile room. My fingers leave imprints on the frigid stainless steel as I place them on the timeless slabs and latch the door. I fix his hair. Death is never warm but it is, every day, the best thing I do.

Taste- Flash Fiction

What a great day. That’s what I was thinking when we pulled up to the drive-through window at Church’s Chicken and pulled the order of leg’s, thigh’s and biscuits away from the pimple faced teenager and into the car. I handed it over to my wife and watched her as she happily picked through the order for accuracy. I drove away and before I could even take the ramp back onto the interstate she had plucked a crispy leg from the bucket and began munching away with her perfect little mouth. James Taylor came onto the radio singing “Sweet Baby James,” and I just couldn’t help thinking again what a glorious, beautiful day.

We had left the hospital an hour before. Everything on the ultrasound was in order. All the fingers and toes were there, and we all started to giggle when the nurse pointed out the tell-tale shadow that let us know a son was on the way. Six more months and we would be parents; I would be a father for the first time and I sat there grinning in silence and staring at my wife’s petroleum covered belly wanting to wrap my arms around her with all the love and pride a man can muster. If the nurse would have allowed it I would have tried to make another one right then and there.

Now we were driving, she was eating the chicken she absolutely had to have and when she said she had to have it I didn’t blink an eye. One of many things I had learned the last four months was not to ever mess with pregnant women’s cravings. Pure foolishness if you even tried to so we stopped at the Church’s that sat three exits from ours and ordered absolutely everything she wanted. With a diet coke. The problem was, even though I wasn’t pregnant, the damn chicken smelled pretty good.

“C’mon baby, gimme a piece.” I asked her.

“You’re driving.” She said simply. “Wait till we get home.”

But I pouted playfully and she handed over a drumstick, which I promptly dropped on the floor under the wheel.

“That’s my man, graceful as a hippo on skates.” I heard her say as I dropped my head and groped around the floor for the greasy leg.

I remember being pushed. That’s what it felt like; it felt like a big hand pushed me in the chest. And then I woke up.

I woke up and that day was five years, four months and twenty-two days ago. So I’m sorry for talking like this happened only yesterday, this wonderful day when the world was bursting with love and hope and a son, but for me it was only yesterday. At least it was two months and thirteen days ago; which is the amount of time that has passed since I came out of the coma I’d been in since the accident. It was strange when I woke up. My arms and legs felt like wet pasta and I knew immediately something was wrong. The first thing I remember thinking was that I tasted chicken. Looking back now it seems silly since I hadn’t even gotten to taste the damn stuff but that’s what I remember. I tasted chicken and I was lying in a scratchy white bed with tubes in my nose and I felt like I wanted to take a shower. I laid there blinking at a florescent light above me and a few minutes later a army of white coated people poured in through the door and a few hours later I found out my wife and son were dead. They’d been dead over five years and I laid in that bed and cried for five hours straight. And then the process of living began.

The physical therapy was intense and seemed continuous. They started me on a liquid diet and then after a few weeks moved me up to solid food which didn’t matter a damn bit because all I could taste was chicken. They brought pudding, ice cream, roast beef and cheeseburgers and it all tasted like chicken to me. The second week Dr. Tomlinson came in for his Thursday visit and said that was something that would pass. The sensation of tasting only chicken I mean. It was a product of the coma and memory and grief; and it would pass.

It didn’t though but I stopped saying anything about it and they eventually, stopped asking; I went through the endless parade of therapy (physical and mental) that would bring me back to the world I now live in. Her parents came last night to the hospital, picked me up and we went to their house for dinner. I am glad they did and appreciate the effort but we barely enjoyed each other before the accident and the conversation was limited almost exclusively to the forks and knives and plates. I was the sad reminder of a wound that would never heal and her mother asked me as I opened the front door to leave why I had not mentioned her name one time. “Why do you avoid them.” Was what she asked and I said I wasn’t sure yet; that I didn’t know. But I did know and I knew to try and explain it to them would be ruthless. I had watched a movie while this world of pain and confusion swirled around me the third or fourth night I had come back and it had mentioned a African tradition of not mentioning the names of the dead. The tradition stated was that once you could say their names aloud again you would then move past the grief of their passing. When I heard it that same feeling of a giant hand pushing me backwards came back and I don’t remember the rest of the movie because I cried for several hours. They wouldn’t understand that. I don’t understand that but I know they have had half a decade to grieve and I have had several weeks. I know I am not ready for names yet; just memories of what should have been and I never mentioned one time that the lovely dinner her mother had prepared; that dinner of Roast Beef, mashed potatoes, gravy and fresh sweet corn that I could smell so clearly all tasted like chicken when I put it into my mouth.

So here I am now waiting on corn bread and soup or pork chops and applesauce; or whatever- knowing all the while what it will taste like. Soon I will leave the hospital as long as the therapy continues to progress and my mind, as they see it, wraps around the reality of things as they are. I look forward to it, to the new beginning of a life without starchy sheets and blood samples and… and emptiness. When it happens I will be glad and I will move on but the fact that I now remain on this rock, with a dead wife and child and that everything will always, always taste like chicken will be with me forever.

Dust it Off and Donate- LA Residents

A fundraising garage sale supporting the ongoing efforts of Long Beach residents Matthew and Renae Kennedy realize their dream of adoption.

WHERE: THE SALE IS SCHEDULED FOR SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16TH AT 225 W. 37TH ST. LONG BEACH. 90807 (CROSS ST. PACIFIC AVE.)

Matthew and Renae Kennedy continue their efforts to adopt beautiful Valeria, a Colombian girl desperately in need of a loving family and home. The process is demanding but Matthew and Renae are committed to bringing their daughter home. She already resides in their heart and has since the couple first met Valeria through the Kidsave organization (www.kidsave.org) while the eight year old girl was on a sponsored trip to the United States from Columbia.

DONATIONS OF QUICK SELL ITEMS (FURNITURE, CLOTHING, UNIQUE ITEMS ETC) ARE NEEDED FOR THIS EVENT.

Volunteers to help with the sale are always welcome and appreciated. It will be a fun day of fundraising had by all! For drop-offs and/or to volunteer please email mediaHo@mac.com or call 310.388.7288 (Renae’s Cell).

For information on the organization and to see Matthew and Renae’s wonderful story and updates on the adoption processes please go to their website at www.KennedyAdoption.com.

THANK YOU so much for your support; the moments of time you invest will help bring a lifetime of love and joy to a little girl and her parents!

You’ll Smell Me Coming

The only friend I have, Jasper Millseed used to ask me all the damn time how I could stand it.

“How can you work in that stench? The fucking pain and suffering of those bastards K-Rock- how can you see that shit all day, every day?” He would ask.

Now Jasper’s about as bright as a glow stick running outa juice and he don’t smell all that good himself. Not that regular bathing is a real priority for most of the people living in this shit storm of peeling paint and crack heads they call “Low Income Housing” but more often than not Jasper smelt like open ass in the sun. Why he thought a few dozen burn victims would be that offensive I have no idea.

He was my boy though; helped me out with a ride and he’d listen to my shit from time to time and he kept his mouth shut. So one day I took him with me. Thought maybe it would interesting for him or something. So I picked him up on the corner at eight a.m. sharp and off we went to the hospital.

He lasted all of an hour. It was a bad day though, worst than most. A three alarm had went down that night and we had 4 brand new “crispers” on the ward floor. That’s what we called the really bad ones; the ones that were at least 60 percent third degree fried up on their bodies and had maybe 20 percent chance or so of lasting the next few days. We couldn’t really do anything for them the first day. The doc’s and nurses of course would keep them off by themselves, monitor their little bleeps and drips on the machines and of course keep them as morphed up as possible so they don’t go crazy with the pain. At least when they’re fresh like that they’re on ventilators so it keeps the screaming down.

But the cleaners like me couldn’t do shit with them yet so I was working on Mrs. Langer in room three. I was changing her dressings, going as easy as I could too and talking to her about random things; her little daughters school and how pretty her little girl was, how much I liked Pecan pie (Mrs. Langer liked baking), how she’d be as good as new before she knew it. Shit like that. I didn’t want to hurt her but it’s impossible not to. Her pus filled burnt skin would come peeling off right with those old bandages and whoosh! The stink came off with it.

The smell of decay and re-growth at the same time, the stench of, well of I don’t know what, I ain’t no writer but I guess the stench of something that’ll never be right again. No matter how bad you want it.

Now it doesn’t even register with me of course but Jasper starts gagging and coughing as he stood next to me in the scrubs I had gotten from Nurse Fowler that morning and then poor Mrs. Langer crying slowly and silently through closed eyes. It wasn’t from the pain either, that she was used to.

I put one hand on her forehead and whispered something nice in her ear and got up and pulled that dumb fuck outta that room by his arm.

“What the hell is wrong with you.” I said low as I pulled him down the cold white hall.

“Jesus K- I… I didn’t know it was gonna stink like that!”

I wanted to knock his block off but then I heard nurse Fowler say behind me.

“Kevin, what is the problem? Mrs. Langer is crying and unattended… and, her injuries are not properly cared for.”

Now I was really pissed. I liked Nurse Fowler. She’s the only one that worked in this whole hospital I did like. She smelled like peaches and always said good morning and good night and she’d let me, against normal rules and all, bring this dumb fuck of a friend I have into the ward with me. I’d told her he was my younger cousin and he was doing a school paper on burn victims.

“I’m sorry ma’am,” I said with eyes burning a hole in Jaspers face, “my cousin was having…trouble in the room and I didn’t want to upset the patient.”

“Well I’m sorry Kevin, but the patient is upset and your cousin I think just needs to go and get his information from the library like everyone else.” She looked at Jasper then and said, “Young man, if you have any specific questions you can call me here at the hospital and I’ll answer them for you. But I’m sorry you need to go so your cousin can perform his duties correctly… these are people who need specific attention.”

Jasper mumbled some half ass apology and I didn’t even watch him walk away, I just hollered after him to return the scrubs to the nurses’ station before he left.

“Kevin, please get back to Mrs. Langer right now.” She looked at me kindly on account of she liked me pretty well. “I should not have allowed your cousin in here.” She added,

“This isn’t a place for the unfamiliar…you have potential, please don’t put me in an awkward position again.”

Then she was gone in a starched white wind and I went back to room three feeling like shit. That’s another reason I liked Nurse Fowler; she was always telling me I had potential. She was wrong of course, dead wrong but it’s still nice to hear once in awhile.

I went back and finished cleaning Mrs. Langer, put new dressings and all on, and said she would be ok. They were doing her first “debriding” that afternoon- which is a technical term they use around here- but sounds to me about as pleasant as slowly getting turned inside out. Then she was getting the first round of grafts started, mostly from cadavers, the following day. She was freaking out in the quiet way that she did and spending a few extra minutes with her wouldn’t kill me. So I did and by the time I brought her back to her bed I didn’t feel so pissed off at Jasper anymore.

He was my boy after all, only one I had and knew shit about me, shit I’d never told anyone else; unless I had to.

The smell and the screaming patients and all the gross wiping and wrapping didn’t bother me and he knew that, he even thought he knew why but he didn’t. I’d never gotten used to the smell, never had to, it’s been with me for along while now. It’s been on my skin and in my nose ever since I sat wrapped in that blanket staring at the house shooting flames and sparks into the night with the scent of my parents, charred and dead, all around me as the paramedics brought me water and the police asked how I got out of that inferno without a scratch. Dumb fuckers never could figure it out. It’s part of me. Like the stink of a dead tooth rotting away in your mouth. Like the smell of dirt on a farmer even after he takes a shower and puts on fresh clothes.

That’s how my dad had smelled. He always smelled like dirt. I’d smell it when he came home from the fields and listen for the way he closed the door, trying to figure if he was pissed or just tired. I’d smell it while we all sat in fearful silence at the dinner table and I’d smell it when he beat my ass.

I was thinking about this when I went to the laundry to get some clean sheets and gown for Mr. Blaylock. He needed a sponge bath, new wraps, bedding- the full treatment- and when I was gathering up the linens I started thinking about my mom. God damn bleach always did that. She never smelled like dirt, just bleach. That shit’ll clean just about anything, get the dirt out like it was never even there. Smells like nothing I guess. I’d smell it on her as she did the dishes, and I’d smell it on her after she came home from bingo when she’d stumble in the door, dress and hair all fucked up and reckless. I’d smell it on her when she’d holler from the kitchen all soft and useless, “Jim…Jim… please, that’s enough. You’re going to hurt him.”

We all have a smell I guess. Mine happens to be something a lot of people can’t manage and after I’d finished up with Mr. Blaylock I stopped by Mrs. Langer’s bed to say goodnight. I was still feeling shitty about before. I just stuck my head in real quick and said goodnight and good luck tomorrow and she blinked real slow, twice like we had talked about, so I knew she was feeling better. Then I dumped my scrubs off at the nurses station, got me one final smell of peaches from nurse Fowler as she filled out charts- she said goodnight- I said goodnight- and I walked out through the schwoosh of the hospital doors with the thought maybe me and Jasper could go out and see what kind of trouble we could get into.

Patty Francis Support day!!

Hello Friends and Fellow Artists,

Today’s blog is special and has one purpose–to help Patry Francis. On 1/29, myself and several hundred writers will be doing what we can to aid in selling and promoting her book The Liar’s Diary.

We have agreed to help because as we do this (and beyond 1/29), Patry will be battling cancer.

Normally when an author has done the long hard work of getting an agent, getting a publisher, waiting for that lovely moment when the edits are done and when a book comes out in a big, splashy way, he or she would be ecstatic about going on book tour and enjoying the presence of fans and book-buyers at readings.

This is that moment for Patry, but she cannot do such a tour–so when Susan Henderson, general goddess of LitPark, came up with this idea about how we writers could help Patry, I thought this was a wonderful idea.

I also enjoyed what Patry’s blog had to say about finding community with other artists and the relevance we have in each other’s life:

“…But in spite of my isolation, through the internet, I now have what writers had to move to Paris to find in the twenties, or enter a costly MFA program in the nineties to encounter–friends! Real ones! In fact, I’d be willing to bet this solitary writer now has more friends than Hemingway did! A whole community of writers and bloggers who believe that stories can change the world, a community who believe that the fate of fictional characters, or the meticulous or messy arrangement of words and motion, and feeling into a poem or an essay is worth whatever sacrifice it takes.”

Well, I believe that, too, Patry. I believe in literature. I believe in supporting other writers.

I believe you will enjoy your next book tour far more–because I believe you will survive this cancer– and tomorrow at 0-dark-thirty, when I get up, I will go and buy your book.

Anyone else who would like to help Patry in their blogs, please feel free to copy and past any of this text. And hey, all you readers out there–this book looks delicious.

“The Liar’s Diary.”

In my way of thinking, buying it is like doing an act from kindness that also happens to be its own magnificent reward.

Much love to all,

H

P.S. Courtesy of LitPark–here is some amazing stuff that promotes the book. Watch and listen.

“Whether you like text, audio, or video, I have a taste of the book for you. Let’s start with an audio clip of THE LIAR’S DIARY. This audio clip comes courtesy of Eileen Hutton at Brilliance Audio.

This video for THE LIAR’S DIARY was created by Sheila Clover English, C.E.O. of Circle of Seven Productions, who was moved by Patry’s story and volunteered her lightning-speed creativity!

Here are the publisher’s words:

Answering the question of what is more powerful—family or friendship? this debut novel unforgettably shows how far one woman would go to protect either.

They couldn’t be more different, but they form a friendship that will alter both their fates. When Ali Mather blows into town, breaking all the rules and breaking hearts (despite the fact that she is pushing forty), she also makes a mark on an unlikely family. Almost against her will, Jeanne Cross feels drawn to this strangely vibrant woman, a fascination that begins to infect Jeanne’s “perfect” husband as well as their teenaged son.

At the heart of the friendship between Ali and Jeanne are deep-seated emotional needs, vulnerabilities they have each been recording in their diaries. Ali also senses another kind of vulnerability; she believes someone has been entering her house when she is not at home—and not with the usual intentions. What this burglar wants is nothing less than a piece of Ali’s soul.

When a murderer strikes and Jeanne’s son is arrested, we learn that the key to the crime lies in the diaries of two very different women . . . but only one of them is telling the truth. A chilling tour of troubled minds, The Liar’s Diary signals the launch of an immensely talented new novelist who knows just how to keep her readers guessing.

And now, here are Patry’s words, which I lifted off her blog: “Though my novel deals with murder, betrayal, and the even more lethal crimes of the heart, the real subjects of THE LIAR’S DIARY are music, love, friendship, self-sacrifice and courage. The darkness is only there for contrast; it’s only there to make us realize how bright the light can be. I’m sure that most writers whose work does not flinch from the exploration of evil feel the same.”

Ready to buy the book? Why not buy one for yourself and one for a friend? And if you like it, tell people!

You can purchase THE LIAR’S DIARY at Amazon, Barnes & Noble.., and Powell’s. You can also buy directly from Penguin to save 15%.. (after you add the book to your cart, just enter the word PATRY in the coupon code field and click ‘update cart’ to activate the discount).”