There's a warning in 12-step programs, whose members are notorious for running away: Where you go, you bring yourself. A card-carrying member of diverse versions of those programs and plenty cynical since I am a serial runaway I expected that to be the theme of "The Mango Tree Cafe." It wasn't. Actually, it was a combo platter of Wally Lamb and Joseph Campbell.Winner of the Indie Book Award, the Novel by Taryn Simpson and Alan Solomon follows Larry as he flees from the mundane world of New Zealand butterfat. Actually, it's his father, a sensitive soul who got stuck on the farm draining cow udders, who tells him to hit the road. Hit it he did, all the way to Thailand. Along the journey he winds up on Loi Kroh Road, a universe onto itself of mysticism, hopes of salvation, and more often doom.
Larry is an Everyman, only with more than the usual share of fear of death, loneliness, inability to connect, and that sense of having a special mission. The latter is no delusion. A ghostly presence lands in his life in youth and keeps him on-track with that mission. The calling is to minister to other suffering souls. Yeah, right out of Wally Lamb's recent work.
Larry accomplishes his life's work through operating the highly successful "Mango Tree Cafe on Loi Kroh Road". Into it roam the world's most needy. Some exit whole. Others just fall through all safety nets, often by design.
Just like Joseph Campbell's hero, Larry is one of those fortunate ones who sets out on a journey to find what he wants and winds up with what he needs. Redemption comes in the form of being able to love. Larry establishes the platform for intimacy by being almost Christlike in giving.
Obviously, there are plenty of lessons in "The Mango Tree Cafe." But, as the adage goes, it's the journey - that is reading this tale - which makes it worth the price of admission.
You can order it from Amazon.com here.
Thank you Jane Genova - Speechwriter - Ghostwriter
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