DEAD CONNECTION : a novel by Charlie Price

ABOUT the AUTHOR

“I was walking in an old cemetery by a river in Northern California and found myself reading the inscriptions on graves. Many children had perished around the turn of the last century in a flu epidemic. The parents had hired stone masons to carve more elaborate inscriptions than I expected to see. I kept imagining the people in the inscriptions.

“Two years later, I wrote a story about a boy who was alienated from school and home, and found a cemetery to be a comforting sanctuary. The more time he spent, the closer he felt to the dead. I combined that story with an event from my community that had troubled me for several years. Murray, Pearl, Janochek, Mr. Robert Barry Compton, Deputy Gates, and Officer Billup began to speak to me.

“I was raised in Colorado and Montana, and I lived in Italy, New York City, Oakland, and Mexico before settling in Northern California. After I graduated from Stanford in the early 1960’s, I had a dual career in education and mental health. Working in a variety of schools and hospitals, I grew to deeply admire the courage of those who lived and worked with mental illness on a daily basis. I admired the young people I came to know—their triumphs, as well as the valiant way they dealt with hardships and failures.

“I am married to a lovely woman who has surpassed my dreams for the past thirty years. Moreover, I hereby attest and confirm that my daughter, Jessica Rose, is always right. Unfortunately, as she will be the first to tell you, I am not of sound mind.”

Charlie Price, in addition to writing and working with therapeutic groups, is a trainer, an executive coach, and a consultant who conducts business workshops and troubleshoots for private and public agencies. He is an avid reader, a pretty fair free-throw shooter, and a hopelessly addicted fly fisherman.