Bøger af Douglas Atwill

Like shards from an Anasazi pot, fragments of writing can describe the whole piece. Eleven selections are included, chapters from three novels and pages from eight stories. There is a long tale about a boy who wins sixteen lotteries in a row, inflaming entrants and targeting him for kidnap. An artist buys an Italianate house in California and moves in her bohemian friends and family, to the dismay of neighbors. Remembrances of past times in the counterintelligence world come back to haunt in several stories. A successful portrait painter takes the family to Bora Bora for a troubled season of art and obsession. A man in mid-life would like to forget his boyhood music lessons.

The title story concerns an old painter, whose Greek landscape canvases have lost their appeal with the buying public. That changes after a visitor to his garden. Another tale is told about a doubting monk who leads a horticultural rebellion in the far west country. Further skepticism in a third story is punished after a holy man's passing in the Himalayan foothills. There is a touch of the other world in these stories, with unknown hands operating in the modern world.

These poems celebrate the words that crunch against each other or glide along without seams, exploring in detail a single, curious idea. The subjects are the varied ones that interest Atwill, from the mundane happenings in the garden to classic questions of existence. Objects around the house have their own stories and a group of nine poems describe some events during a Grand Tour of Europe with his family, long ago. Atwill has lived in Santa Fe for many years, painting canvases of the New Mexico landscape and his garden, and writing stories about a painter's life.

Atwill writes about his garden at a new house on a hill in Santa Fe. There was a necessary sharp cut on the east boundary to make a flat place for the house, and he had stone-fronted terraces built to hold back the tumble. As he planted these with bulbs, perennials, shrub roses, and flowering trees, he wrote poems describing the process. These are tales of both horticultural joy and woe, as well as various poems on other matters that were pressing in at the time.

An unexpected death in Donovan Merrill's family makes it necessary that his grandmother, Anna, and he leave the rectory in San Miguel. They move into her summer cottage in the midst of the artist colony in the Laguna Beach of 1938, starting life over. It will be difficult with their diminished resources, but Donovan and Anna prove up to the task. They find friends and mentors among the painters and bohemians, Donovan early on deciding that he will become a painter himself. After the war years, Anna encourages him to study in Paris; he paints for a summer in Provence and survives a difficult winter in Rome. On his return to the states, he finds a place in Santa Fe, starting his painting career in a rented adobe. When he meets Tomas de la Pena, a young Mexican writer, his life begins to tumble. Tomas's efforts at writing are unformed, not so flourishing as Donovan's career, so competitive troubles ensue. After building a house together, they must face Tomas's continuing disquiet. Time in Laguna is good to Anna, happy in her growing circle of artist friends. A love affair and a later marriage to a German expatriate make a striking contrast to her old life as a minister's wife in San Miguel. She worries as Donovan finds his way, and supports him emotionally and financially. But Donovan proves he can succeed on his own.

Europe in the Cold War years was a dangerous place for Harold Bronson and his buddies, draftees commandeered into espionage and counterintelligence. Their low echelon escapades take them to Berlin, Ulm, the South of France, and Zurich. Bronson chooses this time of his life to explore a personal coming out, creating secrets within secrets in a disapproving military. In his off-time, Bronson paints portraits of the other denizens of Schloss Issel, earning money for trips and adventures to Paris and Nice. Always on the edge of life, he taunts the higher-ups with a light-hearted acceptance of life in the spy world of 1957. Real danger is further off from his circle at the Schloss, but it is an insistent melody they can always hear.

The title story tells of Marian Nakamura who pickles the fallen pears to remember a husband who took a fatal fall from an upper branch of a pear tree. The story won a place on the final ten list of a 2010 "The New Yorker" magazine competition. In another story a Minnesota woman learns to paint in Santa Fe and finds acclaim for her colorful canvases, only to walk away from them. A Native American artist paints a cathedral scene, loosing the powers of old spirits. An even more notable force breaks into a fourth painter''s life, the ancient Old Goddess wanting a place in the new world.

A summer on the California coast calls to Mattox Williams, a writer wanting quiet days to do the finishing work on his novel. He leases his Santa Fe house for three months and finds an ocean-facing room at Glitter Bay. While meeting the other people of the beach community, a love affair develops as well as the surrounding strife. He makes a deep emotional mark on the neighbors, particularly on Hayden Danning and his sister, Sylvan. A surprise offer from a film producer opens his horizons and requires trips south to Hollywood and Laguna Beach. At the end of summer, Mattox tries to find a way to keep alive the love he has found.

Europe in the Cold War years was a dangerous place for Harold Bronson and his buddies, draftees commandeered into espionage and counterintelligence. Their low echelon escapades take them to Berlin, Ulm, the South of France, and Zurich. Bronson chooses this time of his life to explore a personal coming out, creating secrets within secrets in a disapproving military. In his off-time, Bronson paints portraits of the other denizens of Schloss Issel, earning money for trips and adventures to Paris and Nice. Always on the edge of life, he taunts the higher-ups with a light-hearted acceptance of life in the spy world of 1957. Real danger is further off from his circle at the Schloss, but it is an insistent melody they can always hear. Other books by DOUGLAS ATWILL, all from Sunstone Press, are "e;Imperial Yellow,"e; "e;The Galisteo Escarpment"e; and "e;Why I Won't Be Going To Lunch Anymore."e; Atwill lives in Santa Fe, painting New Mexico landscapes and gardens from his studio on the city's Eastside.

An unexpected death in Donovan Merrill's family makes it necessary that his grandmother, Anna, and he leave the rectory in San Miguel. They move into her summer cottage in the midst of the artist colony in the Laguna Beach of 1938, starting life over. It will be difficult with their diminished resources, but Donovan and Anna prove up to the task. They find friends and mentors among the painters and bohemians, Donovan early on deciding that he will become a painter himself. After the war years, Anna encourages him to study in Paris; he paints for a summer in Provence and survives a difficult winter in Rome. On his return to the states, he finds a place in Santa Fe, starting his painting career in a rented adobe. When he meets Tomas de la Pena, a young Mexican writer, his life begins to tumble. Tomas's efforts at writing are unformed, not so flourishing as Donovan's career, so competitive troubles ensue. After building a house together, they must face Tomas's continuing disquiet. Time in Laguna is good to Anna, happy in her growing circle of artist friends. A love affair and a later marriage to a German expatriate make a striking contrast to her old life as a minister's wife in San Miguel. She worries as Donovan finds his way, and supports him emotionally and financially. But Donovan proves he can succeed on his own. This is the author's fourth book for Sunstone Press, after "e;Why I Won't Be Going to Lunch Anymore"e; in 2004, "e;The Galisteo Escarpment in 2008,"e; and "e;Creep Around the Corner"e; in 2009. DOUGLAS ATWILL grew up in California and Texas, lived in Europe and on the East Coast before moving to Santa Fe to paint. His canvases are shown in galleries thoughout the nation and his avocation is the design and construction of vernacular Santa Fe residences.

Neil Bronson, new from the Royal Academy, summers in Provence, teaching himself to paint outside. Before returning home, he and his friends, Sam and Carrie, rent a cottage on the coast, playing a langorous triangle of seaside sexual attraction. Neil's uncle interrupts the idyll, urgently seeking their help teaching at his art school in Santa Fe. A month later, Bronson and Sam move into Casa Marriner and meet the faculty members, several jealous and difficult. Bronson teaches plein air classes, often at the Galisteo escarpment. At first, the students are confrontational and awkward, but they soon grasp his enthusiasm with the New Mexico landscape. While they learn new skills, he refines his, taking the escarpment as a major motif. Crisis at the school involves Bronson in a curious project and a trip abroad to Greece. Besides discovering himself in Santa Fe, he explores the world of sex and love with one of his students, Salazar. New York must wait. DOUGLAS ATWILL's early days were in Pasadena, California and Midland, Texas. He served in the US Army Counterintelligence Corps and earned a BA from University of Texas at Austin. After some years in Virginia and Europe, he settled in Santa Fe to pursue painting full-time. From a studio on Canyon Road, he paints landscapes and paintings of his own garden. His work is shown in galleries throughout the nation. Atwill's avocation of house design, small vernacular residences in classic Santa Fe style, many of which have been featured in books and magazines, has brought him a reputation for excellence. His collection of short stories, "e;Why I Won't Be Going to Lunch Anymore,"e; was published in 2004 by Sunstone Press. This is his first novel.