“My clear choice for winner, this manuscript in progress is stunning for a number of reasons. It is a retelling of the Iliad and the Odyssey that, quite frankly in my opinion, puts it up on the level of Derek Walcott's OMEROS. That is, while it follows Homer quite closely, it manages at the same time, in a completely natural and believable way, to portray American culture and politics in the 20th century, especially as they pertain to the Deep South. Even the names sound like normal Southern names: Penny (Penelope) has her husband Odell (Odysseus) shipped off to combat in Vietnam shortly after the birth of their son Teller (Telemachus). The writing itself is both gorgeously lyrical, culturally hyper-observant, and acerbically intelligent. A real tour de force.”

– Janette Turner Hospital

 

 




time is a river without levees
a. camus © 2007

Winner, 2007 Faulkner-Wisdom Award for a Novel In Progress
Current status: seeking a publisher

“Tell me, Muse, of that woman, so loyal and wise and true, who waited twenty years for her husband to come home from a pointless war, far across the ocean – though he sent no word, no letter, no news of return, and bedded half the women he met while he was gone.
     What? What's that, you say?
     She couldn’t exist?
     Then tell me, Muse, of that woman who could.”

So begins this contemporary retelling of the Odysseus myth, which relates the domestic adventures of Penelope’s flawed modern counterpart, Penny LeBlanc, in 20th century America. As the novel opens, Odell has already shipped for Vietnam, and his wife is returning to the one-star motel in Pass Christian, Mississippi where they spent their wedding night the year before. What she has planned is an ill-conceived hippie-style communion involving a year-old vial of LSD. Unfortunately, the date is August 16, 1969 and Hurricane Camille is headed straight for her hotel room. After clinging to a tree during the legendary hurricane, making strange friends on her long journey home, and turning for comfort to the accidental commune that forms during the twenty years Odell is gone, Penny will no doubt be, by the time of his late return, nothing like the girl he left behind.