My latest novel, “Seamless Sky,” published by JMS Books in January, will be serialized by the Westchester and Fairfield County Business Journals next week and in WAG magazine, their sister publication, in September.

A not so distant mirror of challenging times

July 30, 2020

Challenging times call for creative measures – and so it is that newspapers, purveyors of factual truth, have joined forces with fiction writers, purveyors of psychological truth, in the hope of expanding their readership and providing that readership with an escape from the grim news of the day.

On Sunday, July 12, The New York Times devoted its entire magazine to fiction. And the Boston Globe recently serialized Ben Mezrich’s “The Mechanic,” a novella, the Globe said, “with a strong Boston accent.”

I’m delighted that Dee DelBello — publisher of the Westchester and Fairfield County Business Journals and of WAG magazine, which I edit — has decided to serialize my latest novel, “Seamless Sky,” published in January by JMS Books, in the business journals next week and in WAG in September.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seen here at a Bernie Sanders rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, last year, says that while haters gotta hate, you can still shine on. Amen, sister, amen. Photograph by Matt Johnson. — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seen here at a Bernie Sanders rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, last year, says that while haters gotta hate, you can still shine on. Amen, sister, amen. *Photograph by Matt Johnson.*

AOC and 'shining on'

July 26, 2020

I was going to do a blog post about the Ibsen-ization of Dr. Anthony Fauci,;how President Donald J. Trump has tried to turn him into Henrik Ibsen’s title character in “An Enemy of the People” for speaking truth to power,; how Trump, jealous that Fauci got to throw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals home opener against the New York Yankees, just had to announce that he, too, would be throwing out the first pitch at the Yanks’ Aug. 14 game against the Boston Red Sox; how fans of teams and individuals who behave contrary to their beliefs are left in a quandary: Do you support your team, as you might your family, no matter what? Or do you stand on principle and part company?

I’ll always love the Yanks, but I cannot for the life of me understand how their former, legendary closer Mariano Rivera — a self-proclaimed Christian and proud Panamanian — can support Trump, whose actions are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus, particularly when it comes to Hispanic immigrants.

As I said, I was going to write about all this, and then Rep. Ted Yoho called colleague Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a “f***ing bitch “and the Repubs went after one of their own, Rep. Liz Cheney, for sticking up for Fauci, and I realized I had to write about that.

Harvard Yard in 2005: Fewer students will be attending Harvard University in person this fall, because of the coronavirus, leading to a crisis for those who rely on the school for more than just academic learning.

What price school?

July 12, 2020

In Agatha Christie’s much-admired, oft-filmed “Murder on the Orient Express,” her irresistible Belgian detective, the great Hercule Poirot, finds his “little gray cells” stymied by a case in which everyone is a suspect. Everyone has it in for the loathsome victim, a child murderer on the order of the Lindbergh baby kidnapper, the inspiration for Christie’s villain.

I think it fair to say that we have reached the “Murder on the Orient Express” portion of the people versus the Trump Administration, and the denouement is at hand. Each day brings some fresh outrage against a group that won’t be voting for him. (Roger Stone-pardon critics and New Yorkers, anyone?) Recently, the wheel turned to educators and parents whom the president and his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, are trying to bully into getting kids back into the classroom this fall as the virus still rages and no clear plan is in sight.

Chinese one-child policy propaganda from 1982. Photograph by Robert Schedwy.

Sex and the determinedly single girl

February 19, 2020

I have to laugh at the Chinese government pressuring unmarried women to get hitched. A little background: In 1979, the government instituted a one-child policy to curb the population. Because Chinese tradition dictates that the oldest son cares for the parents in old age — and we wouldn’t want to mess with tradition, now would we? — couples opted to abort girl babies or put them up for overseas adoption. And now the policy, which ended in 2015, has bitten the government in its considerable butt. The gender selection chicken has come home to roost as the fewer females of marriageable age have the pick of the crop.

She will “always love” them: Meghan and Harry, the Duchess and Duke of Sussex at Sandringham for Christmas 2017, five months before they married. It was unusual for Queen Elizabeth II to invite someone who was not yet part of the royal family for Ch… — She will “always love” them: Meghan and Harry, the Duchess and Duke of Sussex at Sandringham for Christmas 2017, five months before they married. It was unusual for Queen Elizabeth II to invite someone who was not yet part of the royal family for Christmas, yet she made an exception for Meghan. You have to think those days are over. Photograph by Mark Jones.

A hard Megxit

January 22, 2020

Mike Bartlett’s 2017 play “King Charles III,” Queen Elizabeth II has died and Prince Charles succeeds her and immediately precipitates a constitutional crisis that has Prince William and wife Catherine looking to wrest the crown away from him. In the midst of rioting in the streets, Prince Harry falls in love with a black woman and decides to abandon royal life for her but in the end, acquiesces to remain in the fold and support the new king and queen.

Truth, of course, has a way of being stranger than fiction, for the real Prince Harry has gone further and farther than the fictional one ever does — all the way to Canada but stripped of His Royal Highness status and any state funding and required to repay the $3.1 million that British taxpayers shelled out to refurbish Frogmore Cottage, which was, is, his and wife Meghan’s home.

Meghan and Harry, the Duchess and Duke of Sussex, take part in a welcoming ceremony in New Zealand in October, 2018. It was clear early on that the ribbon-cutting lifestyle of the royals would not be for them. Courtesy Office of the Governor-General… — Meghan and Harry, the Duchess and Duke of Sussex, take part in a welcoming ceremony in New Zealand in October, 2018. It was clear early on that the ribbon-cutting lifestyle of the royals would not be for them. Courtesy Office of the Governor-General of New Zealand.

The woman he loves

January 8, 2020

Amid the throes of Brexit, Harry and Meghan have staged what the media is calling a Megxit. The couple is stepping back as senior royals to divide their time between Great Britain and the continent the British lost — that would be North America — while somehow still remaining in the royal family.

Wow. Just wow.

Sudden death on D.C.'s power courts

October 24, 2019

A president in thrall to a foreign power. A disenchanted first lady. A White House moving toward crisis.

No, not that White House. But sometimes life imitates art, as it does in Georgette Gouveia’s new psychological thriller, “Burying the Dead” (JMS Books, Oct. 30). It’s a high stakes game of love and death, set on the power courts of Washington, D.C. and other glittering world capitals, that represents a departure for Gouveia, whose previous novels were in the trending category of male/male romance.