Overcoming failure in life July 13, 1985

  

Dear Mary Kay

 Here I go with another chapter of the Patty Mills saga, chapter 3, to be exact. It is no cheerier than the previous ones but does delve a little deeper into the character of Patty, showing more of her homelife than the first chapter.

The home life will grow even more as the classroom scenes shrink. After a while, the novel will become the walls that enclose Patty and complete her isolation.

Her struggle to escape may well be shown by her growing interest in going to Israel, and has suggested in this chapter, she is the girl staring into the sky and wishing she was over the rainbow. Maybe she already is, but just doesn’t know it.

This is a novel I’m writing for my daughter but may come too close to reflect her real life, Patty doing things my daughter might have done, feeling the same embarrassments.

I have assured her that the novel was not written with that intention, but in some ways, this is a lie It certainly symbolized the absolute fruitlessness of her future, a life so much like her mothers as to ultimately have to end up the same way, full of the same painful mistakes and same tragic consequences.

Each chapter is an attempt to investigate the possibilities and failures of life, and to show, somehow, the process of overcoming those failures, reaching a new plain of existence and understanding with each, a new level of conflict that is key to another level beyond that.

Yet, even when the novel is complete it will have flaws inherent in this kind of writing, it will hang together badly with a strong central theme needed to keep a reader going from one chapter to the next. It’s hardly a page-turner. Each chapter will center around itself with the barest of threads to connect the ones before and after it.

This is something I will have to examine more closely when the whole thing is done. It is a struggle just to make the individual chapters work.

Please read and enjoy it and tell me what you think.

Meanwhile, tell me what you’re up to? How’s the business going? How is life treating you?

I recently made peace with another friend who went west to get away from the hectic life and its horrible temptations in the east. She wants to raise her daughter as a Christian, which should be near and dear to your heart. The kid is attending Oral Roberts Institute of all places. For a number of months, I was upset at her leaving and still feel a little hurt by it. But I care for her too much to be bitter about it.

Anyway, I hope you are well. Please Write. I’ve been ill for several weeks; due I suspect to overwork. Once I get myself together, I fell a bit more positive about the change.

 

Take care.

Al Sullivan

 

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