Strike Two, You’re Out
WINNER OF THE 2020 DR. ADRIAN TINSLEY AWARD
Joe Davis has coasted through his seemingly banal childhood as the younger brother of a loving family in a rural New England town in the early 1970s. A combination of bad choices, bad luck, and at times, a bad attitude conspire to crumble the cortex of his personality.
Joe tumbles through his conflicted life seemingly oblivious to ample life lessons he could be learning. A lack of introspection throughout most of his life compounds Joe's relationship difficulties, neither healing his psyche enough to live a genuine life nor allowing him to move past the bad choices and traumatic events of his earlier years.
Joe survives Vietnam, a few cycles of love lost and love found, organized religion, racism, and even the Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandal. He is focused on his future, but his past is ever present.
Joe is in a race against time and fate, and time is running out.
Samsara Interrupted
Some readers of Tim Hassett-Salley’s first novel, Strike Two, You’re Out, complained that his characters had not all “lived happily ever after.” To atone for this grievous sin, the author has created a second novel where the characters live ever after, albeit not always happily.
Travel through time with Peter Dunn as he is forced to re-live his teenage years, hamstrung by all the emotional baggage from his previous life. Take a spiritual journey with Peter as he grapples with Samsara, the Buddhist notion of the reincarnation cycle of birth-death-rebirth.
Will Peter reach enlightenment? Has he already? What good or harm is he creating in his current incarnation? Will he ever make it back to pick up the crumbling pieces of his former adult life?