Hope in a Time of Dying & #1000WordsOfSummer

Life, death, writing with 52,000 friends, and more of my book-review-as-memoir

So…this week was like a month of ups and downs. We celebrated 36 years of “marital bliss” as Russel would say, and we lost Russel’s beloved older brother, Jerry.

Jerry Redmond was, in somewhat chronological order, a midwesterner, an adopted son, a drummer, a student of music, big brother to “little Rusty,” a jazz musician, husband to Rosemary Redmond and father to Melanie and Michael, a sailor, a studio musician in both TV and recording studios, my brother-in-law, a musicians’ union representative, a member of a big band that performed locally in Los Angeles, a dedicated “dog father,” a widower, a father-in-law to Michael’s bride Kate, and the drummer for a weekly jazz group that met in his living room for years. He was ever and always a raconteur who never ran out of fantastic, humorous, and mostly true tales whose characters included celebrity singers and musicians as well as hapless trombone players. He was 89 and his sojourn on this earth was a life well lived. He will be sorely missed, not just in this family, but widely.

This news put a damper on our celebrations, but we did go out to dine at a local spot that features craft cocktails and jazz standards, a setting which seemed quite fitting to hoist a glass in memory. We spent our days getting the boat fitted out for our summer travels, including putting the furling jib back on the forestay and putting the mainsail and its sail-cover system back up. That involved Russel cranking me up the mast—photo below—which was a perfectly metaphorical anniversary event. Marriage, after all, should be all about “supporting” the other person, and “lifting them up” so they can do their best work.

“Hope in a Time of Dying” sounds a lot like the current world situation, with wars raging and genocidal maniacs at work around the globe (don’t take my word for it, check out the Genocide Watch). But Hope in a Time of Dying is the title of a new novel by Len Leatherwood, who I met through teaching classes at Story Circle Network, and whose book I loved. Of course, loving it doesn’t mean that reading the novel was all fun and laughs, though the author employs a dry wit that I enjoyed. The book is set in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, when a cure for AIDS seemed just over the horizon but when the disease was still ravaging the gay population; it is the story of Hope, a young woman struggling to make a living in the big city while trying to help her brother, a surgeon who has AIDS.

My best friend Jim Hansen died from AIDS in December of 1993, so I could definitely relate to this story. I was nodding along as I read Hope in a Time of Dying, prompted to remember the strange way most straight people managed to both acknowledge and ignore the disease, in a strange blend of fear and disgust. Hope also has to deal with living in a new environment far from her native Texas, plus raising two young kids and keeping her marriage together. The novel is layered with a host of other family issues like tense, dishonest sibling relationships, and dealing with parents who won’t accept who you are—things I luckily never dealt with. I recommend the book to those who like domestic dramas or are curious about our country’s recent history.

I also read the brand-new psychological thriller by

Andrea Bartz

, The Last Ferry Out, which was a gripping change of pace. Set on a tropical isle near Cancun, the book follows a young woman who visits the island to see where her fiancee died. The main characters are lesbians and gay men, which was another cool change of pace for me. (Of course I have read many books with gay and lesbian characters, but not lately.) I loved the way Bartz described the setting so viscerally and actively—I could feel the warm humid air and smell the sea. I kept thinking this is what I mean when I tell clients to put us in a setting that feels real and give us just enough expository to keep us turning pages.

Having spent years living in Mexico (and in Florida, which is somewhat like another country!) I definitely recognized the expatriate characters in The Last Ferry Out—their day-to-day lives rang true. And the plot kept me guessing right up to the last pages, which is pretty hard to do. I highly recommend this book for readers who crave thrills and who aren’t afraid to see the modern world of young career women through a new and different lens.

Enough about books, let's talk writing: I am going to take on, for the fifth year, the exciting challenge of #1000WordsOfSummer, the brainchild of author and Substacker

Jami Attenberg

, whose book 1000 Words: A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round would make a great gift to yourself—or you could give it to a writer friend or other creative person. Find out more about the two week challenge, which starts today, Saturday, May 31, supports great charities, and could get you two weeks into your newest writing project.

As I wrote back in 2022: “I love the accountability of having said "I am going to do this," and I love knowing a whole community of other writers are signing on, too. I really like a challenge, and I like being part of a (virtual) gathering of writers. But whether you do or don't pledge to yourself to write 1000 words a day for the first two weeks of summer, I hope you will decide to take on some new writing project this summer, or will recommit yourself to your current writing project. Why? Because it is what writers do. We write.”

So, that’s why I am writing this Substack post this (Saturday) morning, and not yesterday (Friday) afternoon as I usually do, because #1000WordsOfSummer begins today. And now, thanks to my Substack, I have successfully written over 1000 words and thereby achieved my goal for the first day of the two-week writing challenge.

Thank you all for being here, and for subscribing and sharing and commenting. Here is the promised photo of me up the mast the other day—I’m waving to you!

hasta pronto!