For the past 30 years, I've been a teacher (though if you asked a teacher, they'd discount the past 8 years as a "coordinator" since I don't have a classroom per se...sort of like when I used to live in Santa Monica and go to the local Boston bar to watch the Patriots and Red Sox and when I told people there I'm from Concord, they'd laugh and say something like "That's nawt fahkin' Bawston!!!) The kids and the communities I've worked in are working class, mostly immigrant families. The parents clean homes, swing hammers, and many times do the work no one else will for wages that keep them busy six, sometimes seven, days a week. I'll miss the kids. They are generally good natured, quick with the stories, and for the most part inclined toward respect, though, like most inner city kids, can sense a teacher's apposition like a drop of ink in a bathtub. Javier (the protagonist of Gone To Ground) is a special breed, though most every classroom has one like him. I modeled most of my characters off real students, though, in the case of Enrique, he comes straight from The Outsiders. Shout out SE Hinton!

My first box of books arrived, typically a milestone best shared with the world on social media. I honestly can't see why anyone would want to see someone else open a box of their own things. So I retreated to this very exclusive corner of the internet to share the bits and pieces of my writing life that might be of interest. The sequel, as our inimitable president likes to say, is a concept of an idea. Gone To Ground is largely a series of set pieces - dam break, Jones making threats, a riot, Javier's field trip to the 28th floor. I enjoyed writing them. And I may have been too generous with these, arguably, outlandish scoops of narrative ice cream in the bowl. The story moves along mostly on account of the action that resides within each chapter. There are multiple POVs which can be confusing. Readers want a "fictive dream," not a cognitive test. Having had the chance to reflect and read some really great books (in the middle of Sparrow and Peacock by IS Berry and gobsmacked), and the best writers hew toward character and less toward plot to make the most memorable stories. Javier is coming back with a degree in finance and a job as an analyst. Betzaida comes back and has to reckon with her past when one of her friends from the Shoe is found dead. It's a financial thriller that takes a look at the commodification of water along the Colorado River. Drop me a comment if you have any questions.

Definitely my most eye-catching blog headline. During the edit process, I took out the equivalent of 350 pages which is actually more than what stayed in. It was hard to bring the axe down on the soft necks of my "darlings" (which appears to be a term of art...not sure, feel free to comment). Below is a prologue I really enjoyed writing and in my addled mind, it fit in the book. However, I didn't find one beta reader who thought it served the manuscript, so down came the steely blade, sending the prologue into my expansive "orphans" file. So here it is...a little backstory on the Patel thread. Prologue The District Minister ended the ribbon cutting with a short, sober speech, the protest across the street having sucked the air out of his moment. They were a macabre group in whiteface, marble-eyed, arms out scarecrow fashion, and wearing the blue and white tunics of the fire victims. A small team of priests had started hanging garlands around the necks of each protester, a Vedic rite that lent a solemn air to the theatricality.  The Minister descended the dais, glad-handing the familiar faces and watched a stick-legged boy on his bike pedal by, his school portfolio slung across his back.      The train’s horn announced its approach, the engine like the head of a dragon, something called a maglev that floated into sight as serenely as evening prayer candles on the Ganga.  A Hindu only when the cameras were around, the Minister had seen in these past twelve months an abject lesson in samsara  worthy of Shiva, the rebirth of this forgotten section of Hyderabad made only possible from the cataclysm he had helped detonate.   The riots had cost him personally, his own son now lost in the political ether, his social media feed like an IV drip. All of it invented, a Bollywood set piece.  In the end, the factory fire had been his bridge too far, the charred corpses already making dream cameos.      The boy on the bicycle was waiting for him under the banyan tree standing astride his bike. “Minister-ji.”  He clasped his hands in namaste , flung a leg over the seat, and then stood on his pedals, slipping back into the street, his portfolio left leaning against the tree.  The Minister gave it an indifferent look, half wishing he had simply told the boy to keep it: go buy a house with it, go buy twenty houses and a fleet of cars.    He felt the watchful gaze of the protesters, their arms still ramrod straight, mirroring the lengths of the train that now sat idling at the station where only nine months ago the garment factory had stood. Two city blocks in size, it had combusted so quickly, burned at such a high temperature that many of the porcelain fixtures had drooped in the heat like Dali clocks. Skip loaders arrived only hours after the final flames had been extinguished, as if parked at the top of the hill, waiting for the signal to come clear away the evidence.       In a city where people died waiting on permits, the pace at which the factory was bulldozed and then rebuilt six months later invited suspicion and soon after, anger. Not only was there now this eye-popping station but also an esplanade with al fresco dining, fire pits, fern bars, a Disneyland for the burgeoning young IT class.  The minister stared off into some middle distance, the ghosts of the factory fire now vanquished though not forgotten, the wordless echoes of the protesters the only thing he would remember from the day.

Half way through Gone To Ground, an ICE protest breaks out on the streets of the Shoe, though in truth, it was a fraction of what took place yesterday on the 101 https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-02-02/thousands-of-protesters-rally-in-downtown-los-angeles-against-trump-deportation-policies I'm always ambivalent about freeway shutdowns - you've just antagonized a huge number of Angelenos and given the other team red meat. However, if you take part in a demo, there is an undeniable surge of collective energy, of righteousness. Watching demonstrations gives my agita, but participating gives me hope. Last time I marched was as a teacher, and we felt invincible by the time we got to City Hall.

Okay, it's already here. And the results are mixed at best. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2025/police-artificial-intelligence-facial-recognition/ In Chapter 17, the Shoe erupts in violent protest over drones (who can blame them) and the nascent technology that scours mugshots to compare with CCTV and door-camera footage of criminal acts. Sounds good, but of course, it's way too early to be locking people up. We have an undue faith in technology to solve some of our shoe-leather problems. Based on the English crime shows my wife and I watch, the UK seems to have 90% of the urban and half the rural areas covered with ANPR, whatever that is. Leave a comment if you have a comment to share.