Interview with Rich Marcello, Author of "The Beauty of the Fall: A Novel"

Book Title: "The Beauty of the Fall: A Novel"

Author: Rich Marcello

Genre: Fiction, Literary

Available Formats: eBook & Paperback

Kindle link: The Beauty of the Fall: A Novel

Kindle UK link: The Beauty of the Fall: A Novel

Amazon Paperback link: The Beauty of the Fall: A Novel

B&N Paperback link: The Beauty of the Fall: A Novel

SUMMARY:

A TECHNOLOGY EXECUTIVE CHARTS A HIGH-RISK, UNCONVENTIONAL PATH WHILE GRIEVING THE LOSS OF HIS SON

Dan Underlight, a divorced, workaholic technology executive, suffers lingering grief over the death of his ten-year-old son, Zack. When Dan's longtime friend and boss fires Dan from RadioRadio, the company that he helped create, he crashes and isolates himself.

Willow, a poet and domestic violence survivor, helps Dan regain his footing. With her support, Dan ventures on a pilgrimage of sorts, visiting Fortune 500 companies to flesh out a software start-up idea. He then recruits three former RadioRadio colleagues and starts Conversationworks, a company he believes will be at the vanguard of social change.

Guided by Dan's leadership, Conversationworks enjoys some early successes, but its existence is soon threatened on multiple fronts. Will Dan survive the ensuing corporate battles and realize the potential of his company? Or will he be defeated by his enemies and consumed by his grief?

      

THE INTERVIEW:

Why did you write this book? 

In The Beauty of the Fall (TBOTF), I set out to write about what it means to love in a wider sense of the word, to love in in community, and to do so even when the main character, Dan Underlight, has a lot of loss in his personal life. I was also interested in showing technology in a positive light, in this case as a way to bring people together to work on big problems.  So much of what happens these days results in polarization between folks with good intentions. In TBOTF, I was interested in developing characters who strived to reduce polarization by valuing diversity and finding common ground.

A little more on technology. When I started the novel three years ago, I wanted to write  about technology as a healer and a community builder. There are many good novels out there about the evils of technology, but few, if any, about technology companies that bring about positive social change. The idea of using technology to enable a true democracy, as opposed to the slew of representative democracies in existence today, intrigued me. The events in the world this last year –– the rise of fake news, populism, racism, and sexism—confirmed that I was one the right track. However, as my protagonist, Dan Underlight, emerged, I realized I was actually writing a redemption story. Once I was clear on that point, the themes broadened out to include forgiveness, simplicity and, non-violence.

How did you come up with the title?

It came to me one night in a dream, and luckily, I remembered The Beauty of the Fall when I woke up.

How did you choose your genre?

I decided early on to write literary fiction, and that’s what I’ve written ever since.  This is my third novel of literary fiction.

What inspired you to be a writer?

As a writer, I’m trying to go deeper and deeper into the soul of each of my characters, and so I focus a lot of my effort on their inner lives. That’s what inspires me the most, and it’s the primary reason I became a writer. Hopefully, readers will see the main characters in this book, Dan and Willow, as emotionally complicated and fully realized.

Are you writing another book?

I’m working on my fourth novel, The Latecomers, which is about aging in a world that in many ways devalues age. It’s about how a few folks try to build a community that values age and wisdom. I’m one-hundred-and-forty pages into that novel and hope to have it out in a couple of years.

Rich Marcello, Author of "The Beauty of the Fall: A Novel"

AUTHOR BIO:

Rich Marcello is a poet, an accomplished songwriter and musician, a creative writing teacher at Seven Bridges’ Writer Collaborative, and the author of three novels, The Color of Home, The Big Wide Calm, and the forthcoming, The Beauty of the Fall, due out in 2016. Previously, he enjoyed a successful career as a technology executive, managing several multi-billion dollar businesses for Fortune 500 companies.

The Color of Home was published in 2013 by Langdon Street Press, and melds together honest generative dialogue, poetic sensory detail, and “unforgettable characters who seem to know the complete song catalog of Lennon or Cohen.” The Big Wide Calm was published in 2014, also by Langdon Street Press. The US Review of Books stated, “Marcello’s novel has a lot going for it. Well-written, thought-provoking, and filled with flawed characters, it meets all of the basic requirements of best-of-show in the literary fiction category.” The Beauty of the Fall will be published in 2016. Faulkner Award Winner Mark Spencer commented, “Few novels are as intelligent and relevant as The Beauty of the Fall. Almost none is as eloquent, compelling, heartbreaking, and ultimately, uplifting.”

As anyone who has read Rich’s work can tell you, his books deal with life’s big questions: love, loss, creativity, community, aging, self-discovery. His novels are rich with characters and ideas, crafted by a natural storyteller, with the eye and the ear of a poet.

For Rich, writing and art making is about connection, or as he says, about making a difference to a least one other person in the world, something he has clearly achieved many times over, both as an artist, a mentor, and a teacher.

Rich lives in Massachusetts on a lake with his family and two Newfoundlands, Ani and Shaman. He is currently working on his fourth novel, The Latecomers.

Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/richmarcelloauthor

Author's website: http://www.richmarcello.com

Notes from Nadir ~ Dr. Rinpoche Excerpt

eBook edition

By Lisa Maliga

Ordinarily, each Tuesday a blog written by or about the Dalai Lama is posted here. However, due to the new release of the second edition of my novel Notes from Nadir, I've decided to include a somewhat relevant excerpt from it. The chapter has also been edited to keep it under 1,200 words.

Chapter 40 ~ Dr. Rinpoche

At the Buddhist center, a Tibetan doctor was doing a lecture on Tibetan medicine and offering consultations to anyone who called in advance and made an appointment. I'd attended a two-day seminar in Santa Monica a few years ago and found it highly educational. I learned it was a based on Ayurvedic medicine, along with Greek, Chinese and even Persian systems. It was all about balance—if one aspect of the body was off kilter, it affected everything else. My Mom was clearly off balance and she wouldn't deny that fact and agreed to see the doctor. I'd pay for her to see the Tibetan doctor as the fee of $25 was far less expensive than even a Medicare office visit.

I saw the young monk who was wearing his burgundy and gold robes and he smiled when he saw me and especially when he saw Mom. He first bowed to her and then reached over and shook her hand, the kindness emanating from his whole being. Tibetans, especially Tibetan Buddhist monks, highly revered mothers and older people and Mom was in both categories. "Hello, Hello!" he said, and I watched Mom beam at the monk.

After he was out of earshot, Mom asked, "Is that the doctor?"

I nodded. "I think so. I haven't met him before. I know the translator is over there," I pointed to a chubby older man wearing jeans and a burgundy T-shirt with a "Free Tibet" logo on it. Mom smiled and then noticed a couple of white guys entering the room, both with long hair and beards. They were brothers whose names I didn't remember but I knew they'd been to India for a month and did a slide show presentation on it. Both men came over to Mom and greeted her.

We went into the shrine room, a small-carpeted room with a large brass statue of Buddha. The plywood walls were covered with colorful tapestries of various Buddhas, some male, and some female. There were bookshelves filled with holy texts and candle and water bowl offerings on a ledge beneath the fabric-wrapped texts. The energy emanating from the room was intense and usually people spoke in lower voices when they were in the room. But a few times some Nadirian would pipe up in above normal tones and once I heard someone loudly telling a bawdy story using words that weren't allowed on most commercial TV stations. But, the Buddhas understood people and their weaknesses and strengths.

There was a medley of colored and patterned cushions arranged in rows on the floor for the regular students who preferred to sit either cross-legged or kneel on them. For the older people or newcomers, folding chairs lined two walls. The Doctor would be doing his seminar like the one in Santa Monica, and that began with about two minutes of chanting in Tibetan, which puzzled Mom, and she stared at the handout for a minute and then looked around at the chanters.

The Doctor spoke about the three humors: phlegm, bile and wind and about five minutes into the lecture Mom fell asleep. Her interest in medicine went as far as mine did in sewing: that bored me as much. It also required more patience as the Doctor's English was fairly good but sometimes he'd lapse into Tibetan and the translator would interpret for us.

When she woke up about an hour later, better rested, she decided to go outside and sit down in order to get some fresh air. I understood that the incense might be affecting her as it wasn't a smell she was accustomed to – it was rather heavy on sandalwood, juniper and other Himalayan herbs.

Mom had the first appointment after the lecture according to a piece of paper with all four appointments listed by time and the patient's name and phone number. The smiling Doctor Rinpoche invited both of us back into his office. It was so unlike anything Mom had ever been in, no examining table, and no white coated doctor wearing a name badge. In fact, the bedroom was just that and it was decorated in Tibetan Buddhist Motif. Doctor Rinpoche was wearing his standard robes and genially indicated that my mother should sit on the wooden chair in front of the twin-sized mattress on the floor. Doctor Rinpoche would examine Mom right in front of me. "I hope my hands aren't cold!" he laughed, rubbing them together to make sure they weren't. He reached over and gently touched Mom's left wrist.

So I sat there on the bed next to the doc and watched. It felt peculiar, so after a minute I got up and sat on the floor leaning against the other bed.

"Can you please tell me what is wrong?" Doctor Rinpoche asked, looking directly at Mom.

She mentioned being tired and dizzy. He nodded. I could see the connection between them—he was entirely focused on her.

"I do not get anything…" the doctor said, frowning slightly. He let go of her left wrist and reached for her right one. There was a smile as though a musician had found an instrument that was more finely tuned.

Mom rattled off her list of illnesses and surgeries, and as she said, "gallbladder operation, and I only have one kidney" the look of concern and distress on the monk-doctor's face was the essence of a caring and compassionate doctor. With each disease mentioned, he flinched.

He looked into her eyes, and checked her tongue. After that, he had his diagnosis; he didn't say what was wrong in western terms. During the time she was either sleeping or outdoors admiring the tomato bushes and flowers, he had talked about imbalances of the system. He told her she had lung, a severe wind imbalance. She would need some pills, but he was out of medicine until next month when it would be mailed from India.

Doctor Rinpoche smiled at Mom and held both of her hands for a minute as he comforted her. He was so radiant looking and Mom seemed happier in his care. The term doctor's care meant so much by looking at that tableau.

"We will call you when the medicine comes in," Doctor Rinpoche said. And I knew he meant it.

We all shook hands and I gave him the cash. No insurance forms to fill out, no credit cards, no fuss.

When we were in the car, Mom told me that he didn't tell her very much.

"That's not how they do it." I told her. "Just hope the medicine gets here soon."

"You believe in this stuff I don't, Lisa." She paused as I made a left turn onto a busier street. "But he has the best bedside manner of any doctor I've ever met."

"Yeah, especially since he was on it!" I couldn't help commenting.

We both laughed.

Notes from Nadir is available online in both eBook and paperback formats. Here's a brief description: A Los Angeles-based writer returns to her Midwestern home due to financial difficulties. Moving back in with Mom, she is confronted with long forgotten memories, finding it difficult to adjust to life in Nadir.

Paperback edition

Amazon Kindle link: Notes from Nadir

Paperback link: Notes from Nadir

B&N NOOK link: Notes from Nadir

Kobo link: Notes from Nadir

Smashwords link: Notes from Nadir