|
The Windroot Press is the literary home of G. J. Lau, the name under which
I publish. My real home is Frederick, MD, a place just far enough from Washington, DC, to be somewhere
else. I have been blogging for years and have now taken up writing lengthier works, both fiction and
non-fiction. I chose to use a pen name for practical and aesthetic reasons, but mostly to keep the focus on
the words rather than the author.
Why windroot? I found the word while searching through a book
on the medicinal plants of Appalachia. I was struck by the koan-like density of a word
that encompassed such opposites: the freedom of the wind and the permanence of roots. We all have
had times in our lives when we wanted one or the other . . . or maybe both at the same time. Sooner or
later, we must choose either wind or root, freedom or commitment.
That choice lies at the core of my first novel, The Magpie's Secret,
which I see as a thriller with a heart. It is the story of Frank Martinelli, a man who had toted up his losses
in life and sounded retreat. He had lost a daughter and a marriage, and in between failed to stop a young girl
from ending her life, but not before she shared a secret with him. The story opens with a visit from an old Army
buddy who warns Frank that someone is out to kill him. The search for answers leads Frank back to that old secret,
a secret someone apparently wants buried with Frank. In his quest to uncover the truth, Frank finds a reason
to live again. The problem is, if Frank can't get to the bottom of things soon, he may not have much time left
to live.
In January 2012 I published Requiem for Ahab, a 30,000 word novella
set in 1863. Anyone who has read Moby-Dick knows that Captain Ahab lost his leg and then his life—along with the lives of the crew of the
Pequod—to the white whale, Moby Dick. What you may not remember is that Ahab was survived by a young
wife and child, Hannah and Thomas. Ahab's life has ended, but their lives must now go on without him.
They move to a small town near Boston, where she meets and marries Aaron Stoddard. The years go by and
Thomas Stoddard grows into a young man. Ahab's memory recedes deeper and deeper into a past
seldom revisited by either mother or son. When the Civil War breaks out in 1861, Thomas enlists in the Second
Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and sees action at Antietam and Chancellorsville. Then comes the Battle of
Gettysburg, where Thomas is wounded and has his leg amputated. He can't help but remember Ahab's fate, and he
wonders if he too will go mad. Thomas realizes he knows very little about his father's death ... or life.
There is only one man who can help him discover the truth about his father—Ishmael, the lone survivor of the
Pequod. The search for Ishmael leads Thomas to the place where it all began, New Bedford. There lie the clues
that will reveal long-buried secrets from the past, secrets Thomas must unravel if he is to find Ishmael and
reclaim his own future.
This is my first attempt at setting a story in a different time. And the times they were a'changing then,
just as they are now. The whaling industry was on the brink of extinction, thanks to the discovery of oil
in Pennsylvania. The country faced an uncertain future as a union held together by force of arms rather than
mutual consent. That turbulent era serves as a backdrop to a timeless story about fathers and sons, war and its warriors,
suffering and reconciliation.
I've also written SitRep Negative: A Year In Vietnam,
a memoir about my time in the Army, including a year spent in Vietnam. Intended originally as a few
pages of memories for my children and their children, I expanded the material into an e-book published
by Smashwords. Even from a distance of forty years, the process of confronting the amalgam of then and
now that lies within me was not easy. It was a time when the wind blew strongly in my life, and although
I am firmly rooted in the present, the past is still a forbidding place to visit.
My third e-book is entitled Fifty Years of Global Warming.
Climate change—a primary effect of global warming—is just one of what I now see as the three modern-day
horsemen of the apocalypse who stalk mankind, the other two being peak oil and population growth. I have seen the
reality of global warming over the last 50 years of my life. I was worried about the next 50 years and what it would
be like for my children and grandchildren to live in a world that may be very different from the one we see around
us today. What I found was not very reassuring. Climate change is coming at us faster and harder than was predicted
even just a few years ago. I'm not a scientist, so I don't write like one. I've tried to keep it as simple as possible.
Truth be told, the concepts aren't that hard to grasp. Accepting the reality foretold by these three looming disasters … well,
that's what is hard to do.
My fourth e-book is entitled A Misunderstood God and Other Essays.
The essays were from blogs I wrote in the late 90s and early 00s that dealt mostly with whatever political issues were
roiling the waters that week. But many of the posts dealt with topics closer to the heart than the head. As I
re-read these essays, one thing that came through was the joy to be found in the small things in life,
be it sitting in the backyard watching the birds, or playing with blocks, or feeling the bite of a wintry wind
against my cheek. I like to think I share that much in common with my fellow animals—an appreciation of the now.
If I were to hope for one thing a reader might take away after reading these essays, it would be a greater
appreciation of the mystery that permeates everything around us. Loren Eiseley summed it up this way in The
Immense Journey: "The world, I have come to believe, is a very queer place, but we have been part of
the queerness for so long that we tend to take it for granted."
I'm still trying to decide on my next project. Please visit my blog,
to keep up on the latest news and commentary.
If you are interested in checking out the original blogs, you can still
find them at Every Man A Giant and
Planet Restart.
E-MAIL: gjlau [at] hotmail.com
BLOG: http://www.windroot.blogspot.com/
|
