Faulkner-Wisdom Novel Awards—2024 Finalist for Novel: One Day Among the Ruins: A Lesson in Love and Friendship

 

  

One Day Among the Ruins:  A Lesson in Love and Friendship, one of the six novels that I re­wrote between 2022 and 2024 and blogged about, was named a finalist by The Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society’s The William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition.

 

            

This was also my COVID-19 pandemic project that I finished in 2022 then rewrote this year for the competition.  Here is the pitch I’ve been sending to agents:

One Day Among the Ruins:  A Lesson in Love and Friendship (111,985)

An American backpacker and a British expatriate widow experience a lifetime in one day at Pompeii and a night in Naples.  Eat, Pray, Love meets The Graduate meets Indecent Proposal

One autumn day in 1978, between college and career, Mad­dox, an Ameri­can back­­pack­er in a funk about missing a love-interest in Rome, meets Alexis, a middle-aged British widow teach­­ing literature in Malaysia.  Their unlikely, cross-gen­­erational friend­­­ship is forged among the ruins of Pompeii as they share their per­son­al trage­dies and troubled fami­lies, fill­ing a void in each other’s lives.  Yet who is the teacher…who is the stu­dent?  Eag­er to learn more about her near-death ex­peri­ence, Maddox dares Alexis to join him for pizza in Na­ples.  Later he dares her to dance and dares her to ac­cept an un­usual birth­day present, teach­ing him about love.  For Alexis, the dare feels like an opportunity to re­cov­er some love­less years, if on­ly she could for­get about the gut-wrench­ing di­lem­ma that she had to face in the waning days of her son’s life.

Alexis and Maddox came from different generations, different worlds:  Alexis, born in India, the pam­pered daughter of British Raj officer, mar­ried off young on­ly to be­come a wid­owed war bride at eigh­teen, then a survivor of the London Blitz, while Mad­­dox hails from a dys­func­tional, blue-collar Midwestern family with multiple divorces and para­sitic step­sib­lings.  One thing they do share, other than their company, is their brutal honesty.

 “People—all of us, I suppose—tend to see the world in black and white,” Alexis in­forms him.  “Most of life falls in­to a gray realm.  Rarely are there right an­swers.”  She later adds, “For both of us, this was our journey that we had to make…to find our­selves in Pom­­peii—one the teacher, the other, the student.  Only God knows which is which.  In life, as you will dis­cover, each of us teaches and learns, often at the same time.”

Having backpacked three months in Europe in 1978 (and a month in Italy in 1985), hav­ing visited Pompeii (with journal, guidebook, and Bulwer-Lytton intact), having lived for twen­­ty years in Pe­­nang as an expatriate (like Alexis), I have tried to show how that one day—a time cap­sule, real­ly—can resonate in unexpected ways in world events being played out to­day.

              —Borneo Expat Writer

My interviews with other Malaysian writers:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize. 

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey

Preeta Samarasan, author of Evening is the Whole Day, finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2009. 
Chuah Guat Eng, author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change.

MalachiEdwin Vethamani, author of Complicated Lives and Life Happens.

Faulkner-Wisdom Novel Awards—2018 Finalist for Novel: The Lonely Affair (and the Resurrection) of Jonathan Brady

The Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society recently announced the short list finalist; although I missed out, The Lonely Affair (and the Resurrection) of Jonathan Brady was named a finalist and three other novels semi-finalist.  This year they had 438 novels, 98% from the US.

The Lonely Affair (and the Resurrection) of Jonathan Brady had been a finalist in their 2014 and 2012 contest, a Quarter-finalist in 2012 Amazon Breakthrough, and won fourth place in 2008 National Writers Association novel contest), though under a different title.  Over the years, while rewriting the novel, I went back and forth over the title.

Originally it was The Lonely Death of Jonathan Brady.  Although his death was the culmination of the novel, at that point, the novel was more about his “affair”, so I changed the title to The Lonely Affair of Jonathan Brady.  After rewriting the novel, overhauling it completely, I changed the title to The Resurrection of Jonathan Brady.  Although the novel opened with his death, I resurrected his life by examining it, the year-long events that led up to his death, followed by his spiritual “resurrection” after his funeral.  Then I switched the title again and simply called it The Lonely Affair.  Nice and simple I thought, but then I rethought that the following year because the novel was not just about the affair, so I went back and forth between The Lonely Affair of Jonathan Brady and The Resurrection of Jonathan Brady.  Finally I hit on a perfect compro­mise, which fully encapsulates the novel since it’s about both:  The Lonely Affair (and the Resurrection) of Jonathan Brady.

Here is the synopsis:

          During Cabrina Chaval’s debut in The Magic Flute, Jonathan Brady was only sixteen years old, too young to understand the implica­tions of that look — the way she poured out her heart, her soul to him.  Twenty-two years later, she bumps into him and invites him to paint her house.  Yet Jonathan knows her true intentions.  She wants him to rescue her from her failing marriage so they can be together.

          Through a series of coinci­dences, Jonathan is convinced that Cabrina Chaval is not only pursuing him but also deeply in love.  Because of her prominent position in society and the fact that she’s married, Jonathan accepts that their love, for now, must be kept secret.

Recap­turing the innocent love between two sixteen year olds and coming to terms with the loss of a domineering mother, Jonathan Brady’s delusion takes him through five distinct stages of love — Heightened Aware­ness, Playful Pursuit, Courtship and Romance, Jealousy and Sus­picion, Reconci­liation and Acceptance — all unbeknown to Cabrina Chaval.

After some soul-searching about the state of her marriage, Cabrina Chaval resurrects Jonathan Brady’s life and, in the process, elevates his love for her to its penultimate stage — Eternal Love.

              —Borneo Expat Writer