Without Hope is a semi-autobiographical novel I started writing when I was a junior in high school in 1987. Throughout the 1990's I tried to work on it, while also writing the Treadin' Water columns at UNO. Large pieces of it were written while I was in Prague during 2004, but it was mostly completed in New Orleans during the months that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
In 2013, I finally sat down to edit and try to shape it into something. I had parts of a young adult book set in high school from the 80's, a story about a relationship falling apart due to one person's inability to see what is in front of them during the 90's and the story of an unnamed hurricane devastating a city and that city rebuilding, just as a different relationship fell apart because of guilt during the 2000's. And I had stories of the random weird things that would happen in my life, but were too weird to use in Treadin' Water and a lot of religious and philosophical thoughts.
It was a mess. Even the above paragraph about it is a mess. I had fantasies of dying and some professor from Tulane assembling a masterpiece out of the pieces I left behind. But time went on and I kept not dying. John Kennedy Toole had the same problem, until he solved it. Being a little more passive than the author of Confederacy of Dunces, I started editing. I edited out more than I left in the book. On January 1, 2014 I published it on Amazon and Amazon Kindle.
Just below is a removed section of the book, but I think it sums up the book's main character, Solomon, pretty well. I cut it from the book, probably because I feared the TS Eliot inspiration might have been too strong.
The last time that Solomon had been in that coffee shop on Magazine Street—and it’d been a few years—he had to leave. He couldn’t possibly have stayed sitting there with everyone else around him.
For a while he sat there, looking as he did—or at least feeling as if he looked that way: pale, balding, large-pored and lumpy with a crooked nose. And all around him, as well as constantly arriving, were aliens from some other planet. Or maybe they were just some other exotic endangered species—all beautiful. Insanely, ridiculously beautiful, Solomon thought. Not just beautiful, but downright blessed.
At first, he was happy to be an onlooker and to see close-up all these amazing creatures—the way one must feel on an African safari, inches away from powerful and beautiful animals on all sides—and these were like that. Nearly all of them were honey-colored, with flashes of straight white teeth with bright whites around the jeweled blues and greens of their thickly lashed eyes. Their limbs were long and lithe and sun-bronzed and their hair was full and thick and like burnt gold or dark amber or flaxen or onyx. They were dressed in every fabric and color Solomon knew of: pale blue silks and cottons, reds and browns and corduroys and dark green suede, black leather and egg shell lace, yellow ochre wool and pink cashmere. They carried bags and books and as more and more of them arrived and took up space and seats and tables near—but not too near—to Solomon, something between fear and anger began to well up inside of him. He gradually saw that he was outnumbered; he was the endangered one, the rarity, the alien, the freak. Everyone else was normal and beautiful.
Solomon grew more and more uncomfortable. He sensed that they were looking at him. Solomon felt hot and shiny. It was as if the oily, pale reflectivity of his skin was creating an unpleasant glare. Everyone around him seemed to radiate and exude some sort of a “healthy glow”—like in religious paintings where Jesus or the Virgin Mary have a visible halo and a glowing aura to show that they were blessed. Not just “blessed,” Solomon thought to himself, but “bless-ed,” with two syllables.
As he sat there being pale and reflective, Solomon thought he could actually feel his hair thinning. He wanted to explain to them all that he was cursed. He knew he was cursed. He’d known for years now. But the more he looked around at the “others,” none of whom would make eye contact with him, the more an indescribably horrific thought forced its way into Solomon’s mind.
He railed against this. He thought that surely there was some sort of model convention here in New Orleans filming and they were all on a break. As he looked around at them all, he realized that there was nothing comforting in that thought; it made him no less angry.
Biologically, he knew he was the same. He knew it, but could see no surface evidence of it. He tried to focus on everyone’s nostrils, searching for hard evidence of the intake of air. He could smell the perfumed air that surrounded them alright, even above the hard coffee smell of the shop. And he could hear their musical voices rise and fall with waves of laughter and whispers of secrets.
Certainly there were others who were in the same boat and even worse off, Solomon told himself. There are many who are far less appealing than even I, he persisted. Not in this coffee shop, but somewhere. Probably. Solomon closed his eyes for a moment, blocking out all the beauty and perfection and tried to imagine just one person who was worse off than himself. Just one.
The image of a bald albino midget with a hook for his right hand and a flipper for his left formed in Solomon’s mind. He made Solomon feel a little bit better. He named him “Billy”. He was wearing lime-green terrycloth shorts and a fuchsia colored vest partially covering his hairy torso. No shoes.
Unfortunately, just as a long gelatinous thread of saliva had leaked from the corner of Billy’s coldsore-ravaged lips and began to slowly snake its way down towards his corned and calloused bare feet, Solomon’s image vanished. He opened his eyes abruptly because one of the creatures nearest by had laughed with her friends about something.
She was talking about Michelangelo and his statue of David and about the Art History class she was in. They were all in the same class with her—her three tawny, supple fellow-creatures. They attended Tulane or Loyola and this was what they did, Solomon thought. They had coffee and laughed and spoke about Michelangelo. And they flashed their bright teeth when they smiled and they crossed and uncrossed their long legs and blinked their emerald and sapphire eyes and sipped their espressos.
Again, this one horrifying thought forced its way into Solomon’s brain. Filled with an inexplicable mixture of fear, anger and hate, Solomon fled. He left his coffee and his newspaper and had to get out. It had become claustrophobic. Solomon was suffocating and got out just as more were walking in.
He wondered if they’d sit at the table he’d just abandoned or if that table and chair would be taken out and burned and replaced with a new one for them.
It was shortly after this that Solomon had become—nearly—a total recluse, eventually even turning his back on the church.
And the thought that scared him more than any other he’d ever had was that perhaps he was wrong about the curse. For a few fractions of a second in that coffee house on that day Solomon thought, “What if there is no curse? What if I just can’t accept the simple fact that I am not blessed?”
In 2013, I finally sat down to edit and try to shape it into something. I had parts of a young adult book set in high school from the 80's, a story about a relationship falling apart due to one person's inability to see what is in front of them during the 90's and the story of an unnamed hurricane devastating a city and that city rebuilding, just as a different relationship fell apart because of guilt during the 2000's. And I had stories of the random weird things that would happen in my life, but were too weird to use in Treadin' Water and a lot of religious and philosophical thoughts.
It was a mess. Even the above paragraph about it is a mess. I had fantasies of dying and some professor from Tulane assembling a masterpiece out of the pieces I left behind. But time went on and I kept not dying. John Kennedy Toole had the same problem, until he solved it. Being a little more passive than the author of Confederacy of Dunces, I started editing. I edited out more than I left in the book. On January 1, 2014 I published it on Amazon and Amazon Kindle.
Just below is a removed section of the book, but I think it sums up the book's main character, Solomon, pretty well. I cut it from the book, probably because I feared the TS Eliot inspiration might have been too strong.
The last time that Solomon had been in that coffee shop on Magazine Street—and it’d been a few years—he had to leave. He couldn’t possibly have stayed sitting there with everyone else around him.
For a while he sat there, looking as he did—or at least feeling as if he looked that way: pale, balding, large-pored and lumpy with a crooked nose. And all around him, as well as constantly arriving, were aliens from some other planet. Or maybe they were just some other exotic endangered species—all beautiful. Insanely, ridiculously beautiful, Solomon thought. Not just beautiful, but downright blessed.
At first, he was happy to be an onlooker and to see close-up all these amazing creatures—the way one must feel on an African safari, inches away from powerful and beautiful animals on all sides—and these were like that. Nearly all of them were honey-colored, with flashes of straight white teeth with bright whites around the jeweled blues and greens of their thickly lashed eyes. Their limbs were long and lithe and sun-bronzed and their hair was full and thick and like burnt gold or dark amber or flaxen or onyx. They were dressed in every fabric and color Solomon knew of: pale blue silks and cottons, reds and browns and corduroys and dark green suede, black leather and egg shell lace, yellow ochre wool and pink cashmere. They carried bags and books and as more and more of them arrived and took up space and seats and tables near—but not too near—to Solomon, something between fear and anger began to well up inside of him. He gradually saw that he was outnumbered; he was the endangered one, the rarity, the alien, the freak. Everyone else was normal and beautiful.
Solomon grew more and more uncomfortable. He sensed that they were looking at him. Solomon felt hot and shiny. It was as if the oily, pale reflectivity of his skin was creating an unpleasant glare. Everyone around him seemed to radiate and exude some sort of a “healthy glow”—like in religious paintings where Jesus or the Virgin Mary have a visible halo and a glowing aura to show that they were blessed. Not just “blessed,” Solomon thought to himself, but “bless-ed,” with two syllables.
As he sat there being pale and reflective, Solomon thought he could actually feel his hair thinning. He wanted to explain to them all that he was cursed. He knew he was cursed. He’d known for years now. But the more he looked around at the “others,” none of whom would make eye contact with him, the more an indescribably horrific thought forced its way into Solomon’s mind.
He railed against this. He thought that surely there was some sort of model convention here in New Orleans filming and they were all on a break. As he looked around at them all, he realized that there was nothing comforting in that thought; it made him no less angry.
Biologically, he knew he was the same. He knew it, but could see no surface evidence of it. He tried to focus on everyone’s nostrils, searching for hard evidence of the intake of air. He could smell the perfumed air that surrounded them alright, even above the hard coffee smell of the shop. And he could hear their musical voices rise and fall with waves of laughter and whispers of secrets.
Certainly there were others who were in the same boat and even worse off, Solomon told himself. There are many who are far less appealing than even I, he persisted. Not in this coffee shop, but somewhere. Probably. Solomon closed his eyes for a moment, blocking out all the beauty and perfection and tried to imagine just one person who was worse off than himself. Just one.
The image of a bald albino midget with a hook for his right hand and a flipper for his left formed in Solomon’s mind. He made Solomon feel a little bit better. He named him “Billy”. He was wearing lime-green terrycloth shorts and a fuchsia colored vest partially covering his hairy torso. No shoes.
Unfortunately, just as a long gelatinous thread of saliva had leaked from the corner of Billy’s coldsore-ravaged lips and began to slowly snake its way down towards his corned and calloused bare feet, Solomon’s image vanished. He opened his eyes abruptly because one of the creatures nearest by had laughed with her friends about something.
She was talking about Michelangelo and his statue of David and about the Art History class she was in. They were all in the same class with her—her three tawny, supple fellow-creatures. They attended Tulane or Loyola and this was what they did, Solomon thought. They had coffee and laughed and spoke about Michelangelo. And they flashed their bright teeth when they smiled and they crossed and uncrossed their long legs and blinked their emerald and sapphire eyes and sipped their espressos.
Again, this one horrifying thought forced its way into Solomon’s brain. Filled with an inexplicable mixture of fear, anger and hate, Solomon fled. He left his coffee and his newspaper and had to get out. It had become claustrophobic. Solomon was suffocating and got out just as more were walking in.
He wondered if they’d sit at the table he’d just abandoned or if that table and chair would be taken out and burned and replaced with a new one for them.
It was shortly after this that Solomon had become—nearly—a total recluse, eventually even turning his back on the church.
And the thought that scared him more than any other he’d ever had was that perhaps he was wrong about the curse. For a few fractions of a second in that coffee house on that day Solomon thought, “What if there is no curse? What if I just can’t accept the simple fact that I am not blessed?”