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By Gene Farrignton


Dear Reader,

 

You are about to embark on a very interesting journey that will take you to Jamestown, Virginia; the Chesapeake Bay; Washington, D.C.; London, England; Munich, Germany; Avignon, France and various other spots in between—in the here and now. You will also observe Jacobin London and the founding of the Jamestown colony in the 17th Century. You will get insights about what was happening from a David and a Molly from both the past and the present.

 

But wait… there is also the narrative of a Native American— Opechancanough, who was taken to Spain as a young man and educated in the ways of the white man. How is it possible that he inserts himself in the here and now, via email chats as opech, including attachments that become very important to Molly and David’s narratives? It’s magic and spell-binding. Just hang on and go with it.

 

Oh, and one, no… two more things: contemporary David is writing a novel about that other David—the one from the 17th Century; and Molly is transcribing the diary of that other Molly—the one who is her ancestor and a member of the Jamestown colony. And we, in the here and now, are lucky enough to read them in this unique novel, The Blue Heron.

 

Gene Farrington mashes the past and the present as only a postmodern novelist can, always conscious of the impact of words, even as he fractures time and melds characters in such intricate ways that you will be amazed at how time means nothing… how the traits and qualities of ancestors get passed along—through time, through blood. By breathing life into historical figures as well as the fictional ones, Farrington forces us to reconsider: what is history… what is fate?

The Blue Heron

"In this existential world, where we float like isolated molecules, it is the colliding into one another, the connections we make that create the lives we lead."

            - Gene Farrington,

                              The Blue Heron

 

About the Author

WSP author Gene Farrington

Gene Farrington was one of perhaps thirteen people born in North Dakota. Growing up he lived with his seven siblings in towns in South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa. The varius loci perhaps enhanced the potential to produce a writer. At Monona High in Iowa, he wrote only one poem, confiscated as the English teacher assumed it had been plagiarized because of its brilliance. He joined the Marines and was shipped off to Korea. There was a war on, although they didn’t call it that. Whatever it was, it provided fodder for a novel presently in process entitled The Accoucher Comes. After the USMC he enrolled at Kent State, married, moved to Los Angeles to escape the Ohio winters, divorced, managed an in-house advertising ad agency and, in his spare time, wrote bad fiction. He discovered creative writing at Cal State L.A. and, under the tutelage of novelist John Weston, learned to write. He completed his B.A. and M.A. and had his first play produced. Liz Trupin of JET Literary Associates became his agent and remains his agent eons later; she sold his tenth-century novel, Breath of Kings, to Doubleday. He went off to University of California, Santa Barbara and got his Ph.D. Another play was produced—Halek, in which Shakespeare speaks only words he had written. It won the Corwin Metropolitan Theatre award. He taught at Cal State, L.A., the University of San Diego, and Cal State San Bernardino before arriving at Notre Dame of Maryland University where he teaches literature, theatre courses and creative writing. 

The Blue Heron by Gene Farrington
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