Bøger af David Roller

Beauty from Ashes is fiction and is a compilation of stories written for the author's wife as she battled leukemia. This compilation is a continuation of the author's book, Harbingers of Spring, in that it presents the growth of a festival over several decades in the Sweetwater Valley of Brown County, Indiana. This area is a location where the author spent his childhood years, where his grandfather's farm was located. There is no festival located there, only beauty, and the site still has the location of the author's grandmother's house where it sat before it burned to the ground. Rebuilding it would be senseless, as it originally sat too close to the road. An attempt was made, herein, to present a story of equality and diversity and describe what that might look like if all concerned strove for the same goal. Ugly is a presentation of racism concerning the mother of the author's childhood girlfriend. The mother presents total unbiased interactions, except toward one neighbor child. Isaiah 61 is used to outline the ups and downs of progress toward a multifaceted goal. In every situation and every confrontation, the author attempts to show an actuality of beauty developing from conflict and cruelty. It presents the human predicament through the inclusion of the most radical and diverse characters the author can imagine, all working together to achieve happiness. The forbidden love between a mixed child and a White child is a continuous thread throughout the book, with an almost conclusion, when in old age and helplessness, he is murdered and dies being cared for by his lover. The conclusion is from Genesis 1:2, Job 33:4, and Numbers 27:16 regarding the Hebrew word Ruach, wherein God's name is referred to as the sound of a breath, wherein we whisper God's name in every breath of our life and close our life with one final recognition of our living God. Love triumphs.This is the author's third book. He also wrote Butterfly Wars and Harbingers of Spring.

The Harbingers of Spring is fiction and is a tale of hope set in the surroundings of the author's grandfather's farm in Brown County, Indiana, of memories from the first decades of his life, born of childhood loneliness, amid things he would do if he had the choice to get people to come and visit. This book follows decades of the development of a festival in the Sweetwater Creek valley. It is a presentation of equality and diversity that follows a girl and boy in their pursuit of forbidden love. It presents a global input into a microcosm while the harbingers of spring, from the constellations to the flowers to the wildlife, to annual happenings, mark the growth and education of the two main characters.This education is punctuated by the genetic development of a grand champion bull and a bloodline of prized cattle and the production of mules. A world court is depicted that hears cases of the lovelorn, annually, and gives opinions up to and including the provision of weddings. The book depicts the conversations of all introduced characters from wherever to the constants of the rural setting: the rules of bathing on the porch in a washtub and spitting on one's finger to entice the butterflies and making a bed of two pairs of pants for lovemaking. The story expands out of harsh fundamentalism, the ugliness of the gangs of Great Britain, the old assertion that behind every great fortune lies a crime (Balzac 1834), the drug cartels, and the systematic destruction in the prisoner of war camps. Love does triumph. The driving force of the girl protagonist is the belief that if you have been denied of your own dreams, you should do whatever you can to help others not be denied their dreams.The Harbingers of Spring is a retelling of stories made up by the author to maintain interest by his wife in fighting leukemia, born of desperation--an effort to entice her to want to hang on, just to hear one more story, and a plea for her to continue to live.

Butterfly Wars is about the destructive nature of post-traumatic stress disorder over time. In a one-year reflective journal, the narrator tells the first-person account of the development and fragility of his character, which is then subjected to provocative challenges that shatter expectations, reducing one to chronic depression. The net result overtime is low self-esteem, with personal value only credited to experiences outside of himself. The challenges are glimpses at the destructive nature of fundamentalism, the skewed perception in accepting responsibility when one is too young, the crushing weight of trusting others, and progressing to the ultimate in humiliation. The account is about failed efforts to be responsible for taking care of oneself and chronic isolation. Failure is the inability to see true value, when self-worth is not deemed possible. He wears blinders when surrounded by high self-achievement. The first step in recovery is the late life experiencing of one significant other. The book is a storyline that concludes with the realization of a beginning.