Max and Carly Live!

As the saying goes… hello, world!

It’s been a while since I’ve started a new blog. Five years since I started ranting and raving about world events, and an astounding nineteen years since I began writing about movies and related stuff. I don’t think the word “blog” even existed back then. And I could argue that the movie blog started even earlier than that—twenty-seven years ago, if you count the movie reviews I was writing and posting on the wall of my place of employment for the benefit of co-workers before the birth of the World Wide Web.

If all these years of blogging demonstrates anything, it’s that I’ve always had a need to be writing something. But like probably most people driven to write, I always had it in mind to write a novel. In fact, I’ve written many in my head and even started keyboarding several of them. But the blogs were a handy way to fulfill the writing need and still have time for work and family. But eventually a funny thing happened. The daughter for whom I felt it was so important to make time and not estrange myself from by locking myself away for hours every day writing started pressuring me to finish one of my books. And lo and behold, I finally did. It’s called Maximilian and Carlotta Are Dead. Why is it called that? You’ll just have to read it.

For the moment it is available exclusively for Kindle and on the right side of this page you can find links to various Amazon sites where you can preview it, borrow it (if you have such privileges with Amazon) or even purchase it for download. Also to the right are links to my other blogs where I have already been discussing the book and what it’s about. I will henceforth carry on that discussion here.

For now, though, I will just give the briefest of summaries of what the book is about. In my usual humble way, I wanted it to be The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for my generation, those of us who came of age at the beginning of the 1970s in the American Southwest. I wanted to explore the clash and mutual attraction of Anglo and Latin culture. I wanted to revisit the confusion of the events and politics of the time. I wanted to celebrate the friendship and bonds that young men form in the transition from boyhood to manhood. And I just wanted to enjoy the excitement and fun of being young, having bad judgment and exploring the big, wide world.

And, no, it’s not all that autobiographical. At least that’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.

Thanks for reading this and sharing a part of the journey.