Beneath the Crimson Maples

A person’s life takes many twists and turns before he has become disillusioned with his life; and,
fear plays a major role. Whether one is raised in a wealthy family or hails from Milwaukee’s
inner city, it does not matter. The game changes. However, when a person ends up on the short
end of the stick one too many times, it is hard to keep a straight face. A cast of characters stand
out from the Crimson Maples, become fiercely independent while everyone they run into try to
keep them from going off the ‘deep end’.
Thirty-eight-year-old siren, Genie Bartusek, a wounded housewife, yearns for one last chance for
a smitten dalliance with a significant other when ‘no-nonsense’ Paul stumbles into her presence.
Perhaps there is a God working her magic for the forlorn strangers because each have stumbled
and become wary of life.
Youthful Jasmine Padilla cannot relate to any adult, especially her successful mother. Even her
friends she keeps at a distance. Is this how life is going to be for someone who has just tasted the
fruits of life? An accomplished flutist, she still desperately wants to lead her junior varsity
basketball team to great heights. That is if her new coach will overlook her junior high
transgressions by asking her “why am I not getting enough playing time.” Awe chucks, does
Jasmine really want to hear another, “you don’t really know how good you got it.”
Old Paul Bogdanov and two his two Burmese Cats quietly roam around his backyard garden
as the neighbors quietly pass by him minding their own business. Their children roar by him on
their bikes screaming at the top of their lungs. After all, school’s out. “OK, OK, I give up. He
enters his home through the back door his two friend as the mid-summer sun begins to set.
The northwest Milwaukee Sherman Park Community seems to be so full of life as it has for
decades. In the novel, Beneath the Crimson Maples, what has seemed to be so serene and alive
becomes more complicated and less appealing. Here, in northwest Milwaukee where perhaps
there is a chance that some will make it out of its entanglement without a scratch.