Kirjahaku

In Broken Pieces of God David B. Seaburn returns to the domestic arena to explore the complex and extraordinary lives of an ordinary American couple, Eddy and Gayle Kimes. Eddy, a supervisor for a cable company, loses his job. Gayle, a tax accountant, is recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Unemployment, failed chemotherapy, and no insurance bring them to life's precipice. Desperate, Eddy turns to a statue of Jesus, seeking a miracle, while Gayle dives deeper into a scheme she has been concocting for twenty-five years.In the meantime, their adult offspring, Rich and Sandy, grapple with the aftershock of a tragic incident that has shadowed their lives since high school. What will happen when their secret is revealed?At the eleventh hour, Gayle re-enters treatment and the family pulls together. Will it be too late?This is a story of resilience in the face of uncertainty, hope in the midst of darkness, and family ties strengthened by life's vicissitudes.

The dual challenges of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis that threatens the world and the unexplained loss of parents that threatens a family are the driving forces behind the lives of two boys and their grandfather.Willie, Denny and their grandfather, Pop, have lived together for nine years, ever since the boys' parents died in an accident that remains a mystery to the boys. Denny reluctantly leaves for college, while Willie enters sixth grade, fearful of the menacing missile crisis and curious about his parents' fate.Willie's best friends are Lucy and Preston. Lucy wonders about the 'man in the suit' who seems to be everywhere she goes. Her mom, Trish, grapples with unemployment. Preston is burdened by the trauma his father is experiencing due to his military service. Denny meets his first-ever girlfriend at college, Lucy, who has one leg that's shorter than the other. Good neighbor, Robert, is building a bomb shelter in the back yard. Muriel, his mother is a shoot-from-the-hip older adult with dementia.Over time, the connections between them create the shelter they need for their common journey. Seaburn again tells a story of human vulnerability, endurance, secrets, truth, loss, humor, resilience and love.

When, at the end of their fortieth anniversary dinner, Laney announces she's leaving Franklin, he's stunned and asks if she ever loved him, to which she answers, "Yes, until it was gone."Laney leaves for the Oklahoma panhandle in search of Roz, their estranged daughter, who left home at sixteen, and the nineteen-year-old granddaughter, Maggie, Laney has never met.Shortly after she leaves, Franklin contracts COVID which morphs into long COVID. His episodes of fogginess and disorientation awaken memories of abuse at the hands of his father. His sister comes to take care of him, but she needs to return home soon for the sentencing of a mass murderer who killed her husband.If that weren't enough, Maggie becomes pregnant and, due to medical complications, needs an abortion, but she lives in a state where it's outlawed. What will she do? Where will she go? Will the family find the resilience to come together for everyone's sake?Until It Was Gone tells of a family trying to make life work while being pummeled by the exigencies of contemporary society. It celebrates the thin strands of hope that hold us together and move us forward.