The Grove of Hollow Trees

"We who were children in the 1950s, adolescents in the 1960s, and young adults in the '70s-we are a thing. We practiced what to do in case of nuclear war. We watched American officials-southern sheriffs and governors-openly defend racism. We went through the Cuban missile crisis and the Kennedy assassination and the War in Vietnam. We slept with boyfriends we weren't about to marry and took drugs for fun and declared ourselves liberated from artificial restraints inherited from the past.

 "We were not liberated from the work ethic or from desires to achieve distinction, to attract mates, and to live a life rich in experience. We were not liberated from the need to see our children grow up safe and sane." --Annie (A principal character who lived in a rural group house in the early 1970s.)

Author's Statement

Writing The Grove of Hollow Trees deepened my understanding of my life's experience. This book looks at the conditions of my coming of age as seen from a later point in life. My actual young adulthood included none of the people, locales, or situations described in this story.

Why does the effort to make sense of his own life experience cause a writer conjure a cast of characters and events? By giving body and voice to latent aspects of self, they are illuminated. By shattering lived experience into shards, and assembling the bits into a mosaic, I receive a better understanding of who I was and am.