AMAZON.COM KINDLE -- FEATURES -- A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA -- SOUTH AFRICA, 1968

The Winter Olympics are now on in Sochi, Russia, and I cannot believe some of the daring do of participants in the downhill skiing and now slopestyle snowboarding.  It literally takes my breath away.  I salute all the athletes, not only those from the United States, knowing how much dedication, hard work, an imponderables these athletes must endure to arrive at these games.

One might not think there is much daring do to putting words on a page, but it is a daring do of totally different kind. 

I have been doing this -- on and off -- for the past forty-four years.  Eleven years ago, I did what I think is the equivalent of slopestyle snowboarding daring do by writing a novel. 

Well, it wasn't exactly a novel but a memoir of my youth during WWII in a small industrial town on the banks of the Mississippi River in Clinton, Iowa (IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE 2003).  I had attempted to write a novel before -- and have pieces of many novels all over my patio -- but found the business of actually writing, too daring.  Finally, David Cavanaugh, a life long friend, receiving many feeble attempts to explain why I hadn't written the memoir, wrote, "Stop complaining, write the damn book!"  So, I did.

I spent ten years (1993-2003) researching "In the Shadow" taking twelve trips back to my hometown, spending tens of hours studying microfiche of the war years at the Clinton Public Library, and interviewing more than 100 souls from the era of my youth still around.  That does not include the extensive correspondents with people across the country over that decade.  I received wonderful letters -- yes, people were still writing letters in 1993 -- and audio cassettes of personal recollections.  The book couldn't have been written without this cooperation, and enthusiastic support.

A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA was even a more challenging project.  It took me forty-four years to finally complete it, and have Kindle of Amazon.com offer to publish the story. 

Over that 44-year period, I wrote and rewrote the text, and thought I would die before it reached an audience.  Thanks to modern technology, and the generosity of Amazon, it became an actual e-book on the Internet January 3, 2014.

Prior to these quasi-novelistic daring dos, I have been writing nonfiction books and articles out of my genre of industrial and organizational psychology.  Since these efforts were based on empirical work over the years, they have come fairly easily.

Once I read somewhere that the hardest thing in the world for an actor to do is to act natural in front of a camera.  I found that equally true staring at a blank white page of paper or a blank screen on my computer when it came to writing a novel.

In an early rendition of my life, I was videotaped doing a piece on what was called "Quality Control Circles."  It was after Tom Brokaw had headlined an NBCTV program, "Japan Can, Why Can't We" in early 1980.  Technical Publications at Honeywell spliced our two efforts together on the same tape for internal use.  To put it bluntly, it was an embarrassment.  Brokaw was so "natural" and I was so "wooden" that I've never looked at the tape again.  I hope it has been destroyed by now by my former employer.

Many have read A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA in its various forms.  Some have read it on Kindle.  None so far have exercised the opportunity to post their comments (or reviews) of this novel on Amazon.  They instead write to me, which kind of defeats the purpose of the process, a process of which I know little about. 

You see, I am a totally unknown novelist, totally, and writing in this daring do medium is more than a little threatening to me.  I appreciate comments to me about the novel but it would serve the novel and reflect the general interest if instead they posted their views on Amazon.

How do readers find the novel?  I have a very small sample and all those sharing their views, knowing me and my proclivities, have asked that I keep them to myself.  Well, in a way, I suppose I am violating this by summarizing what they have written or posted to date, but in the interest of readers in general and Kindle, which has sponsored me, I offer this thumbnail reaction:

Some readers find the novel daring, informative (re. South Africa apartheid policy in 1968), like a movie in the head; others see it as an actual film with the lively characters of the novel jumping off the screen; then there are others who find it richly and surprisingly sexual but not beyond the believable; some could see themselves jumping right into the story as participants, others find it highly critical of the Roman Catholic Church and formal religion in general, still others find it weirdly and revealingly confessional, some find it narcissistic in a strangely balanced way, and on and on. 

These comments -- were they posted -- would give readers ample opportunity to judge their relative interest or disinterest in the book, but alas, they are not available. 

Kindle is featuring A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA during the month of February, which is African American Month.  This is appropriate as the book deals with the draconian practice of apartheid by the minority (20%) population of the Afrikaner government on the majority population of the Bantu (80%).  Afrikaners (1968) represented two-thirds and the British one-third of the white population.

The novel is a story of betrayal on every level imaginable: personal, professional, political, corporate, industrial, economic, religious, and cultural.  No one is saved from this betrayal paradox.  No one.