Inspiration: I wrote The Chayotes over the course of ten years, completing it last year after retiring a few years beforehand to MidCoast Maine–a moving plan that had been in place for decades. The storyline of this book was inspired from firsthand experiences working for City & Federal government parks and recreation, musicians I’ve known, and attending various jam sessions to sing or play.

The Chayotes explores themes of escapism, identity, transiency, and finding purpose through helping others, delivered to the reader with humor and warmth. Readers have enjoyed its fast pace, engaging characters, and vivid late summer surf town setting. Though set in coastal California (San Luis Obispo County), the story’s spirit fits any town.

EXCERPTS

“When the sun rises up in the morning and shines its face down on Colitas, it’s already been on a long journey of rising and resting, coming from everywhere else in the world east of there first, which is almost every place. Most of the year, it dreams itself straight out of the universe to awaken on an island of Kiribati, yawning on to New Zealand and Japan, stretching toward India and South Africa, on to coffee in Germany and tea in Scotland and breakfasts in Newfoundland, Maine, and Colorado. The sun then swims toward California, skipping right over Bakersfield (of course) until boom, there it is coming up over the coastal range, rising enough to finally spy sandy-shored beaches. Waving the gray fluffs of fog away back to the ocean, the sun kisses the beach and the waves and says, “I’m done, this is the place, get me a mimosa ’cause I’m hanging out here awhile. Oh, what the hell, all day. I like it here!” But of course, the truth is that it isn’t the sun that is traveling through space and time, it’s us. On its last mile to the beach, the sun peeped voyeuristically in through skylights and parted curtains onto still-sleeping surfers, students, and seniors, in through car windows of rushing commuters gulping sips of cappuccinos, and onto the roofs of restaurants and parking structures. It glanced over the tops of branch-woven nests, nudging dozing mother birds off their warmed eggs, then spied petals of morning glories, prodding them to unfold for waiting bees. Sun then peered through the eaves and cracks of barns to the blinking eyes of owls just returning from the night’s hunt and a life-tired, rock-star-turned-transient awakening from a mouse-eaten mattress in a loft.”
(Chapter 17: “What About Breakfast at Tillys?” – The Chayotes)

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