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Buy Place |
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Synopsis A man and the woman he loves seek firm foundation for their lives in a contemporary American landscape where sense of place is shifting and uncertain. Hugh Ogden, a divorcee in his late 40s, is a computer systems theorist developing advanced algorithms for Artificial Life. Abigail Sipes, a high-powered corporate consultant with star status, is a widow struggling with fractured memories of a personal tragedy so profound it seems to threaten her very existence. In some way that defies rational understanding, she literally vanishes into thin air. Complicating their search for answers is the unexpected arrival of an abused child whom society has discarded and planted on their doorstep. As their three-way bond grows and deepens, the truth of Abigail's bizarre affliction seems more within reach. Place is a story of science and blindness, love and faith, the wreckage of family and its resurrection -- and the quest for affirmation of the certainty of life. Author's Notes I started writing Place in the fall of 2003, when my wife and I were living in Olympia, Washington. We had invaded Iraq that spring, and all around us were signs either of support for the war (no real surprise: Ft. Lewis and McChord Air Force Base are nearby) or a shrugging acquiescence to it. From traveling in the area and around the United States, I felt that our society had become broadly anesthetized by the events of 9/11 and its aftermath. We were wallowing in a collective jingoistic stupor. Because we were all supposed to think alike, we'd stopped thinking. Because we only saw what we wanted to, we'd stopped seeing. This is the psychosocial landscape that motivated the writing of this book - and becomes the principal environment for most of what happens in it. When we stop seeing, the premise of having a character who physically disappears doesn't seem so far-fetched. But of course it's not that simple. I chose to make my first-person character, Hugh, a math/physics/computer whiz so that he could explore all the possible rational aspects of Abby's affliction. He's also working in artificial life (A-life) where communities of individual two-dimensional bots evolve and self-organize. Could Abby's vanishing acts be, in fact, the result of a huge leap ahead - punctuated speciation - in human evolution? Evolution, quantum theory, metaphysics and the frailties of human perception all have a hand in the story. So does the book's principal setting - New Mexico, where we lived for several years. I know of no other place in this country that is so robustly weird, where magic is part of the weave of daily life. There's a point in Place where the book started "writing itself," as authors sometimes claim. It's where the boy, Lyn Blake, enters the story and starts to drive Hugh and Abby in directions they never anticipated. He's crucial to the foundation of the story, grounding the adults (who are fairly cerebral) in the gritty mechanics of daily family life. Where Abby might otherwise evanesce or spin out of control, Lyn is the glue and gravity to hold her in place. •••• The book's cover photo, an amazing cloud shot by Philip Shaw, is a view looking west of Santa Fe in the area where much of the story takes place. The ghostly image in the upper left of the back cover is courtesy of Janene Visser of Cape Town, South Africa. •••• Place was represented for a while by two very capable literary agencies in New York and had reads by several houses, but with no offers. I decided to self-publish the book in the spring of 2009, knowing what the reaction was from a handful of readers who saw it in manuscript form. I believe it's my best work. |
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