A new review of my novel.

Faces in the Sand

By Richard MacLeod

Copyright 2010

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 978-1-4580-3399-4

Richard MacLeod’s novel of family and love is brimming with well-developed characters, a stirring plot and a thrilling ending.  MacLeod is a gifted writer.  The panorama of feelings and experiences in Faces in the Sand reads as an epic novel – filled with charisma and beauty.  Here, we find inviting characters and vivid descriptions.  There is nothing dry or sluggish about this novel. 

We are quickly immersed within the mind of Portia, a therapist who searches desperately for the true memory of her dying father.  MacLeod deftly reveals the warm longing and devotion of a loving daughter and her desperate search for experiences lost and found.  Her father, like so many others, was a victim of World War II.  After twenty-five years of absence, Portia searches for meaning in their missing relationship.  They had become strangers, absent in a life of warm wishes.  She felt deserted, betrayed and unloved; yet on his deathbed, Portia gently strokes his head, as she would a dearly-loved child.  As she reflects upon her childhood and beyond, MacLeod showers readers with a rich tapestry of descriptions, layering vivid imagery and metaphor adroitly.

MacLeod’s comprehension of psychology is revealed through Portia as she ruminates over the people parading through her life.  It is a tapestry of conceptions; thoughts leading to new ideas, leading to new understanding.  Through the eyes of her patients, Portia, a skilled therapist, explores the same vivid feelings of abandonment, fear and desire that she so desperately desires to work out in her own life.  Through her father’s old friends and a myriad of letters, her father’s idyllic and heroic life pours out to her.  Portia grows through the experience, as do all abandoned children who seek to understand life, love and opportunities lost. 

Revealed through letters from Portia’s father in Faces in the Sand is the agony and abject fear of battle via soldiers in World War II.  MacLeod explores the terror of battle in North Africa and beyond.  But memories became reality and reality fade into conjecture.  The ending is shocking and thrilling.  No one is who they appeared to be.  Reality turns fantasy upside down. 

MacLeod explores the feelings of children whose parents are not who they appear to be.  In this case, the protagonist has a father who becomes larger than life.  Portia’s father is a hero, who deeply loves her, yet fails as a father because of circumstances well beyond his control.  Here is a story of lost love, the terror of war and one child who wishes to pull all of the pieces together. The ending is shocking and penetrating.

Faces in the Sand is a powerful piece of fiction that appeals to everyone who has had a mysterious or lost parent or spouse.  Life is often far from our expectations or understanding.  MacLeod proffers a depth of character penetration within a believable story of war, family, love and lost relationships.  This is a book that will remain with the reader for an eternity.

Charles S. Weinblatt

Author, Jacob’s Courage

http://tiny.cc/x7n90

Away in the woods.

For the last five days I've been away in the woods. I didn't have a phone, television, internet, radio, or a Big Mac. I didn't care what was happening elsewhere. My world was my campsite next to a small stream, a fly rod, my dog, my wife, and crystal blue mountain air. There was mosquito or two; someone was running a generator after hours; a trailer had a bright light until ten o'clock; and the wind blowing through the trees was a little noisy. I had my morning vanilla latte just to keep things normal. It was peaceful.

On the fourth of July, I went to an old fashioned parade in a town with no stop sign. I've seen the same parade almost every year of my life. It hasn't changed much in one hundred and forty nine years. U.S. Marines marched down the street carrying our flag as it waved in the wind. I thought about our freedom. I thought about what is happening to our country with those that want to do away with our Constitution. I thought of people that are struggling to put food on the table, send their kids to college, and find a job. I thought about the men and women who are in harms way in foreign lands. I thought about the media who have become loud microphones with their own agenda. They were the judge and jury in the Casey Anthony trial, not the twelve people sitting in the jury box. They wanted her tried and hung from the nearest tree. Forget the law. The media found her guilty. It felt more like the Salem Witch Trials. I don't know why Americans were glued to their televisions over this trial. The man running his generator in our campground was watching the trial on his satellite dish. It made me want gag. Most of us would have never known about the trial without the media telling us to watch it. When do we turn it off?

When I got home there was a newspaper on my driveway. The front page was filled with two murders, one suicide, a drive by shooting, and a bank robbery. Someone should invent a newspaper with only good stories, but then maybe no one wants to read that. If only I could have stayed in the woods, the noise would go away.      

Kim Kardashian's butt...

Holy cow! I thought I've seen everything, but this takes the cake for the most narcissistic human being on the planet. Kim Kardashian had her butt x-rayed to prove to the world that she did not have butt implants. WTF? Her Twitter page has something like eight million followers. Why do we care so much about this girl? Our world has lost its mind on religious crazies, wars, human suffering, and the second Great Depression, but we have to endure seeing her displayed in our faces with all the glitter that is not gold. She's a pretty girl and made a lot of money. I'll giver props for that, but come on people. Why do we care if she did or didn't have butt implants? I guess it falls in line with having to watch the Casey Anthony murder trial live on all cable news channels. It's sickening and sad at the spectators we've become. If I see another gold commercial I'm going to throw my shoe at my TV. When do we wake up and realize the more we watch, the more they laugh all the way to the bank? That's my rant for this Saturday morning.

Women grunting in tennis.

I see the folks at Wimbledon are complaining about female tennis players grunting with every shot. I often wonder this myself. It was on my list of things to complain about. They sound like a chorus of exotic birds screaming in the jungle. What I don't know is why they grunt. Golfers don't grunt. Can you imagine Tiger Woods grunting over a putt? Hitters in baseball don't grunt. Even football players don't grunt, unless the air is forced out of them by someone resembling a small pickup truck. Even the male tennis players are quiet compared with the women. Does it make the ball go faster or straighter? Are they taught to grunt when they are young? Do they grunt louder if it's a backhand? What about the serve? I hear men doing this in the gym, but they are usually muscle-bound slobs who carry around a gallon of water in large jugs. They think they are still part ape and grunting attracts females along with their heavily applied cologne. Maybe it makes you stronger or smarter. I wonder if it will work in my office. Instead of whistling while we work, we can grunt while we work. That won't work either. We would sound like the men's room at the tennis stadium after some bad chili. Sorry for the visual. Happy hump day!

Foreskin and Goldfish in San Francisco.

San Francisco has done it again. After serious debate, and a ballot measure already on the books banning circumcision, they want to ban goldfish. I wonder if these pinheads, who hold office, have all night benders thinking this stuff up. I love San Francisco. It is a beautiful city, but they once discussed birth control for pigeons. I'm not exactly sure how you do that. Does someone place a little pill into the bird feeder each morning? What happens if they miss a morning? Do they put two pills in the feed the next day? Is there a morning after pill? 

The idea of being circumcised after you have a memory is terrifying. Can you imagine a thirteen year old boy when the Rabbi comes to visit for his Bar Mitzvah? Friends and family gather around, mom is smiling, dad is beaming proud as a peacock, while little Yakov holds his noodle out to be snipped by an old man, with a long beard, wearing a Yamaka. Ouch! Then there's the photo album and video of the event. I wonder if they will serve cake and ice cream. Sorry for the visual.   

Banning goldfish is a different proposition. Someone thinks goldfish are being bred inhumanely, similar to puppy farms (these are the same folks that think circumcising a thirteen year boy is humane.) Hmmm . . . They live in water. How can you treat an animal that lives in water inhumanely? If the water is to hot or cold, they die. No sale. If you don't feed them, they die. No sale. Little kids forget to feed them or change the water, they die. They're fed to other fish in huge aquariums. I'm not trying to callous, but this is a silly. In the ocean, little fish swim by the millions close to one another so they don't get eaten by bigger fish. Then there's Chinatown, which probably has a way of making a goldfish an aphrodisiac or a cure for foot fungus.

This is San Francisco, America's Sodom and Gomorrah, where anything and everything goes, except goldfish, foreskin, and pigeons. I wonder what's next.   

A guy driving a Bugatti.

I was driving on the freeway today and came up next to a guy in a Bugatti. If you're not familiar with this car it costs about $2 million dollars. Traffic was moving slowly, so he couldn't avoid all the eyes on him wondering what would cause a man to drive a car that essentially raises a middle finger to the rest of us. I know what you're thinking, Rick was jealous. No. I was thinking about pushing the accelerator down on my Honda, with its powerful four cylinder engine, and slamming it into the side of the Bugatti just to see if it dents. It could be made of kryptonite for all I know. The impulse was there. He was flaunting his wealth when most of us struggle to pay our phone bill. My car costs less than his tire. It would have been fun though, film at eleven stuff, but I am relatively sane on Tuesday's and didn't have my camera with me to take photos of his expression as I pummeled his jewels.

The sun is out. Summer is here. Maybe I will see him tomorrow. Stay tuned. 

A. Weiner . . .

I try to stay away from political rants, but this one needs saying.

Doesn't everyone in the country find the United States Congressman, Anthony Weiner, embarrassing? He's not my representative, but he is representing the United States of America. He needs to resign today, not go into some treatment for his illness. He doesn't suffer from drug or alcohol abuse. He doesn't need a leave of absence, he needs to be fired. He's a sick twisted pervert. He might have had a hard time as kid with the last name of "Weiner", but that doesn't give him a hall pass. The man has no morals and shouldn't be walking the grounds of Congress. He's not a teenager. He's a US Congressman. Not to mention he has a pregnant wife who is an aid the Secretary of State. He has too much time on his hands to think about the unemployment rate, the deficit, three wars, and all the other problems our facing our country. Why can't our elected officials oust him today? Let's give him a permanent leave of absence. No wonder our country is such disarray. We can't hold fools like this accountable. There are three hundred million of us in this country and we need to demand his resignation and the nonsense that continues in the halls of Congress. I know we are all tired of it.