Thorns & Roses <!--Thorns and Roses-->

The book is a pseudo-memoir of events, both real and imagined, taking place (for the most part) in a town called Rustbelt City. The seedy, old industrial town is recalled in imagination, for it has been supplanted by asphalted parking lots, offices for lawyers, and title insurance companies. Written in five sections, it begins in a blue collar subdivision, moves to a farm on the outskirts of town, and then to the penal system of Rustbelt’s educational system. Work and the protagonist’s attitude toward it is exposed in part three. The fourth section introduces persons who would usually be described as” not quite right”. And the last section attempts to show our joy, sometimes not fully perceived beneath the chaos of our lives.