back to start page for Paris Affaire novel history 1976 to present
Twin Forgotten Manuscripts Published At Last After 40 Years
= A Young Man's Novel & Poems =
Age 27 Stationed in 1970s West Germany

When I was 27 and a soldier in West Germany 1975-1980, I lived a pretty full life as always (rich with youth, light, and melancholia). I worked hard at my day job in the U.S. Army barracks where I was stationed. When I wasn't pulling the usual weekend or night duty shifts in additon to my regular job as a clerk, I traveled all over Europe in my orange VW bus (Paris, Brussels, Luxembourg, Heidelberg, etc). And I was privately an author. This was immediately after the Vietnam era. My war was the Cold War, and I was lucky enough to draw garrison duty most of the time (long story, for another day). C'est la vie, as will become relevant later on this website with my novel Paris Affaire.

Something Very Special. All of that, and lots more, is background noise for what I want to tell you here. This isn't about the Army, or Europe, or the Cold War, or the luck of the draw. It's about a novel and some poetry I wrote long ago about a lost world even longer ago… (and then something about umbrellas, as you'll see).

On this website, I will tell you about something very special: two of my projects, one of them a passionate love story, the other my one and only collection of poetry. I did not realize at the time, but forty years later I saw how gloriously linked those two works were and still are. The novel and the poetry selection will each stand on their own, and I have published them as stand-alones (in print and e-book editions). However, because of their deep linkage, I have published them also in a combined edition.

KINDLE E-BOOK

PRINT EDITION

Browse or Buy at Amazon

The book linked at far left is an e-book edition to buy & download from Amazon for your Kindle reader.
     The middle link is for the corresponding print edition. Most of these are standard 6x9"; a few have added trim sizes available (5x8"). More info at Amazon.com.
     Most print editions are also available at Barnes & Noble online; or call/visit your local bookstore to order.

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Selected Images/Places. Paris was four hours away, and Heidelberg less than two hours. They were among my frequent weekend destinations. On the other hand, New Haven (in memory and imagination) was an unreachable place in the past with no destination in the present or future. Saint Ronan Street is a quaint college town thoroughfare that I romanticized in my novel of New Haven memories as I typed, alone in the old Tank Barracks (Panzerkaserne) during lone evenings with Mozart, drizzle, rustling leaves, and passing traffic out on the Mannheimerstraße. Perhaps I should have called it Updike Street, after the prominent New England author who was at that time still alive and writing his own college town romances (he was in the back of my mind, along with my B.A. Classical, Comp, and English Lit). A few quick images on this page (right), a thousand or more in memory. Oh, and the umbrellas thing… it later became also a Paris novel.clickclick

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