The Author Guy Blog by Larry B. Gildersleeve - 13, Sept 2024

13th September 2024

Hello out there,

Welcome back. I’ve long admired the late Robert B. Parker and was even more drawn to his books when I began my own author journey eleven years ago. I’ve emulated two hallmarks of his writing – short chapters that are dialogue-driven. Parker is best known as the prolific author of bestselling crime novels separately featuring the protagonists Spenser, Jesse Stone and Sunny Randell. This past weekend, I re-read Parker’s 1983 novel Love and Glory, a departure from most of his other works because it is, in fact, a love story, and here are a few things I rediscovered.

The novel is set in the 1950s and 1960s when I was growing up, and the protagonist, like me, went to college intending to be a writer before life, like me, took him far away from that destination. The protagonist “Boone or Boonie” loved F. Scott Fitzgerald’s iconic 1925 book “The Great Gatsby” and, no lie, that book is near the top of my upcoming vacation to-be-read stack. The protagonist kept journals in notebooks, as I have all my adult life going back to college days, and wrote short stories and essays for publication based on those journals. I wrote my second novel, Follow Your Dreams, based upon my journals, and subsequently extracted a journals-focused novella entitled “My Way” I offer free to anyone who contacts me at www.larrygildersleeve.com.

My two takeaways I want to share are that one never knows what one will learn or discover turning the pages of a book, and there can be immense value in re-reading a book that once resonated with us.

Until next week … Vaya con Dios

Larry B. Gildersleeve