The Struggle to Disappear - Not so easy, or so desired, after a while
Increasingly our fantasies are about just disappearing - and our deep longing to do so.
There is plenty of precedent for doing just that. Stephen King's father went out for a pack of cigarettes. When King became iconic in the terror category of literature, an investigative reporter had tracked the wanderer to a new family in Pennsylvania. He was dead but a second family, though they didn't know the man they thought they knew hadn't gotten a divorce from his first wife, was very much alive.
More recently, as Evan Ratliff recounts in the current edition of WIRED, Matthew Alan Sheppard felt overwhelmed as well as bored by his life as married man and environmental and safety manager. He faked his death. Perhaps like so many runaways, he seemed to also want to be found. He was, by the authorities.
There is plenty of precedent for doing just that. Stephen King's father went out for a pack of cigarettes. When King became iconic in the terror category of literature, an investigative reporter had tracked the wanderer to a new family in Pennsylvania. He was dead but a second family, though they didn't know the man they thought they knew hadn't gotten a divorce from his first wife, was very much alive.
More recently, as Evan Ratliff recounts in the current edition of WIRED, Matthew Alan Sheppard felt overwhelmed as well as bored by his life as married man and environmental and safety manager. He faked his death. Perhaps like so many runaways, he seemed to also want to be found. He was, by the authorities.
Indie Book Winner "The Mango Tree Cafe" digs right into these archetypes of getting lost. It's different, though, because the runaway Larry wants to find himself and help others do the same. The tale, by Taryn Simpson and Alan Solomon, is unusual in that the journey is not really one of flight.
Told by his farmer father in New Zealand to not set roots down in the world of butterfat consistency and price, Larry leaves what he knows. However, he already has a sense what he is going to find or must find. A ghostly presence visits him when he was a child and assigned him a mission of sorts. Stephen King-like, this creates both a feel of the mystical and the terrifying.
After taking plenty of wrong roads, Larry winds up on Loi Kroh in Thailand. It has that exotic pull force of attracting the world's most needy, most lost, most promising, and most doomed. Larry and his girlfriend Noo minister to them through the flowing booze, excellent chow, and an ability to listenat "The Mango Tree Cafe." By doing good, the couple also does well. They make a bundle and even more when they sell the restaurant.
The theme of the novel might be the Old Testament one of Many Are Called But Few Are Chosen. Of those who wander into "The Mango Tree Cafe", summoned by some voodoo force, most will continue their suffering.
Told by his farmer father in New Zealand to not set roots down in the world of butterfat consistency and price, Larry leaves what he knows. However, he already has a sense what he is going to find or must find. A ghostly presence visits him when he was a child and assigned him a mission of sorts. Stephen King-like, this creates both a feel of the mystical and the terrifying.
After taking plenty of wrong roads, Larry winds up on Loi Kroh in Thailand. It has that exotic pull force of attracting the world's most needy, most lost, most promising, and most doomed. Larry and his girlfriend Noo minister to them through the flowing booze, excellent chow, and an ability to listenat "
The theme of the novel might be the Old Testament one of Many Are Called But Few Are Chosen. Of those who wander into "The Mango Tree Cafe", summoned by some voodoo force, most will continue their suffering.
They can't or won't exit their loneliness, fear of everything ranging from death to intimacy, resentments, and regrets. Given that, it could serve as a morality tale about leaving what has been or what is to journey forward, not stay stuck. Perhaps the novel is saying: We don't merely tell our stories. It's within our power to create those stories and put in the necessary energy to keep editing them.
The novel can be ordered here from Amazon.com.
The novel can be ordered here from Amazon.com.
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