This is Book 1
of the Shady Park Chronicles.
Life is hard for people I’ve known in poorer countries, in the third world, as they call it. At the community college, I taught international students for many years and heard their stories. Refugees arrived in my class after the war in Vietnam and Cambodia. Later some of my students were fleeing the fighting in Afghanistan. The stories of some of them were heartbreaking.
I sometimes felt it was comical when my countrymen complained about minor inconveniences. I felt embarrassed to hear them talk disparagingly about people who had less than they had while at the same time seeming to admire people with money and power even when they were being exploited by them. I read stories in the newspaper about bribery and corruption and wanted to draw my own picture of contemporary American society.
This is what Gustave Flaubert did when he read a report in a newspaper and wrote his novel Madame Bovary. He saw his own society as comical, embarrassing, easily manipulated by people with money and status. I decided to name my characters after his Emma and Charles . Except my Emma Bovant is not as easily manipulated Flaubert’s Emma Bovary.
Take a look inside the book
“Keech (A Hundred Veils, 2015) takes on a literary classic in this novel, which follows the romantic and social trials andtribulations of Emma Bovant and her husband, Charles. . . . This taleshould please readers who enjoy romantic drama, and may be of interest to fans of Flaubert.” – Kirkus Reviews
Relevance of the novel
Emma has lost her job but keeps her sense of humor as she struggles to keep her family going, even if they can’t match the pampered lifestyle of her friends from “the Estates.” Her naïve, idealistic husband Charles is no help. His only concern is seeing that there are no preservatives, pesticides, or growth hormones in his food.
Partly under the influence of her friend Andre,an unmarried, eccentric intellectual who mocks efforts like trying to keep dandelions our of your lawn as “first world problems,” Emma abandons any effort the keep up with families in the Estates and befriends a family of immigrants from Vietnam who live in poverty, waiting to become naturalized American citizens. Their hopes seem dashed when ICE suddenly arrests them simply because they are immigrants.
The novel satirizes the American middle class’s obsession with things that don’t matter at the expense of ignoring the real plight of people who are facing life-threatening challenges.
The complete Shady Park trilogy including First World Problems, Shady Park Panic, and Shady Park Panic is available in a single ebook
