Roger Ladd Memmott – författare

GARDENING WITHOUT GLOVES

Short Fiction - Literary/Mainstream

What comes of Gardening Without Gloves? Read each of the twelve stories in this volume to find answers that you wouldnt expect. On one level Memmotts book is an excursion into the psychology of love, while on another level it voices the despair of love and relationships misunderstood. One story shows this weathered visage and another one that. The characters, in their own dangerous and diametrical ways, are overcome by the elusive, and sometimes disillusioning, expectations of love. Flawed by misapprehension, they are often left bereaved, puzzling only the ambiguities of love, or what they thought was love, and how it slipped away.

There is energy here, the kind of sensual energy that is lacking from most fiction todaya fascinating piece of writing.Raymond Federman, author of Take It or Leave It

AN OPTIONAL ILLUSION - In retrospect a young man witnesses the landscape of his youth and one particular event of infatuation and violence that stays with him like a tremor.

GARDENING WITHOUT GLOVES - If marriage, to be successful, is simply a matter of forgiveness, then the commitment to love should be greater and is more important than love itself. A sad realization for two divorcees who long for intimacy and a renewal of trust but fear the possibility of dread.

PITTONS - An abused woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown grows suspicious of her childs imaginary friend and dreads the very real possibility that he has vanished into another world.

SOLANUM TUBEROSUM - A middle-aged man picks up a young woman hitchhiker and confronts within himself something beyond fear.

GREETINGS FROM ZANESVILLE (or Through the Anonymous Skin of Unclaimed Bones) - A man returns home with his wife after a Rock Concert and, sexually snubbed, takes a solitary walk in the park. There, he confronts himself in the eyes of a mugger. When he returns home, all battered and self-abused, he is filled with a grief-stricken understanding of the transient nature and nuances of love.

EURIPIDES DETOUR - A newlyweds fantasies bordering on mythomania, coupled with a problematic childhood and the improbability of love, obscure the truth.

WATERMELON TART - A neurotic woman who has undergone cosmetic surgery disguises herself and journeys by night to the arms of her lover. When she gets off at the wrong bus stopdisoriented, lostshe is beaten and robbed, and the sorrowful implications of her journey rise before her like vampires at dusk.

LOVE - A meandering skunk and the disquieting memories of childhood reaffirm the ambivalent nature of love between fathers and sons.

MR. EDWARDS DEMISE - A retired college professor is run down by an automobile while crossing the street. The moment before impact, in the chrome of the bumper, he envisions a reflection of himself and the imperatives of love, and then the world opens before him with all its possibilities.

HOW EDNA WENT BLIND - A couple mistakes one another for what they need at a given moment in their lives. Now, there is much to consider in their relationship, the give and take, and whether even the fragments of love are sufficient to enlighten the eye.

THE HAPPIEST MAN IN THE WORLD - A retarded boy, falsely accused of a vicious crime against the girl he loved, comes to realize that his only hope rests in a home for boys.

HOW WAR LOST ITS MEANING - An acerbic portrayal of the individual struggling to maintain his sanity in a world at war and a vivid rendering of the intensely poignant love that keeps him sane.

THE GYPSY LOVER

A Novel - Literary/Mainstream

A seductive, mesmerizing tale eloquently told.

Such is the consensus among readers and reviewers alike. This dark, haunting tale asks whether it is possible to survive a love that consumes you.

To escape a life of abuse, fifteen-year-old Evan Adamson sacrifices the love of his childhood sweetheart only to find himself caught up in the ill-begotten adventures of three Gypsy outcasts who ultimately teach him the ways of the heart and the soul, and most importantly that, ...there will always be that in this world which goes beyond understanding and speaks to the heart in a more meaningful way. There is Mad Nikolai, who carries a secret beyond the possibility of thought; the old fortune-teller, who comes to accept Evan as part of their destiny; and Armanda, the sixteen-year-old beauty who reads the dark and foreboding enigmas in Evans palm. He is drawn by their powers and mesmerized by their ways, confused by visions and vague premonitions of things to come. The story is filled with Gypsy tales and curses, the bujo (a switch-the-bag swindle), murder, infidelity, love, and revenge. When Evan finds himself torn between the dark girl of his dreams and a promise he made to his mother years before, he sees in a single moment the reflection of his own true nature and the capacity for a love that transcends all else. By the very enigma of riddles, he comes to discover himself. And those discoveries are both heartbreaking and wise, as complex as they are devastating for in heaven and in our dreams, love is simple and glorious, but it is something quite different in the world of flesh.

The Gypsy Lover is patterned loosely after the bildungsroman whose principal subject is the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of its youthful protagonist. The story is a thematic mystery, at the heart of which lie riddles and discovery. It is the story of love, acceptance and loss, of disaster and death, of renewal. The plot is circular and character driven (a boy in search of himself) and defined by a number of emotional turning points, which lead to climax and denouement where all things come back around.

a real talent. The Gypsy Lover is a picaresque coming of age story, rich in plot, romance, tragedy, and theme.The Editorial Department

A classic coming of age storyThe Gypsy Lover is an artfully written novel that can be understood on many different levels; it is a book worth reading several times to capture the full flavor of its message of hope, healing and redemption.Steeped in Thought Book News

"Intoxicatingly poetic...by turns stunningly beautiful and prosaic, The Gypsy Lover is innovative, unequaled, and recommended."Romance Reviews Today