Kirjahaku

Six fascinating and touching diaries are discovered in an old rooming house that detail the lives of the owners and tenants spanning over a century of change in Chicago's Back-of-the-Yards neighborhood. An unwed pregnant teen shows up; a teen from Paris, France appears, the result of a relationship during World War I; the first Mexican in the neighborhood is given a room and eventually inherits the place, his diary describes his young life running the streets in Tijuana, Mexico and how the rooming house served undocumented AIDS clients. The matriarch leaves a long-hidden diary that details her undisclosed life of brothels. Filled with love, life and family secrets, The Rooming House Diaries prove DNA does not always make a complete family.

Shaw Skogman, a taciturn, successful farmer, erupts and attempts to kill his wife and son by firing a shotgun at them. Shaw ends up with a severe leg wound but chooses to die rather than accept a lifesaving amputation. His wife and family learn more shocking things about him as they discover the separate life he led in plain sight. Elderly farmers and their spouses died. Was it of natural causes? How did he acquire so much land? What was the relationship between him and Melvin, his nervous right-hand man? Shaw's first wife committed suicide-or did she? What roles do a gay undertaker, a closeted sheriff, and two gay teens play in discovering the answers? Finally, what secrets did his second wife have?

Eula's stardust-spirit-has been waiting for her father to return to their old farmhouse so she can learn why he didn't rescue her, her brother, and their mother. Dying of cancer, her father Duane, finally returns. He wants to pass away with his guilt and remorse of not being able to rescue his family and, more importantly, his secret shame over the way he dealt with his mixed race relationship. Retha, a nurse specializing in end of life care, works to help him overcome his regrets. In the process, each realize their secrets and their families are intertwined. In this touching and deeply layered story of race, prejudice and love, an Eastern white pine tree-named Memory-presides over the front yard and proves to be a generational refuge.

Face Your Fears is filled with vitality as it challenges the traditional concepts of normalcy, family, disability and love. Nate is a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy raised in a family of achievers. He must be fed, dressed and toileted, yet has unique skills and abilities he gradually becomes aware of. Jude is able-bodied, one of 10 children raised on a hardscrabble Iowa farm. He can change diapers, cook, fix equipment, milk cows, and discovers his vocation as a physical therapist. Both experience tragic teen-age losses, navigate family tragedies, and come to peace with who they are individually as gay men, and eventually together. This book shows how normal comes wrapped in different packages, yet inside each package, people are the same, whether able-bodied, disabled, black, white, brown, green or LGBTQ+.