A year ago today, my novel WHEN I GOT OUT was published by The Story Plant.

Reading it over, I’m still very proud of it.

And though it’s set just before the rise of Trump, I’m especially glad to have gotten in these prophetic words.

“… Why was everyone suddenly everyone else’s enemy? I was used to it in prison, but why out here? Why is everyone so angry all the time? Roland’s words echoed in my mind: the Bad America won. We used to have such hope and optimism in this country. Now everybody in America hates somebody else, and hate makes people stupid. All sense of the common good is gone because your enemy might get something out of it. Everybody just tries to save themselves, and the whole thing has gone to hell.”

-- and --

“OK, so maybe we’re never really really secure, any of us,” I said. “Everyone is under intense everyday pressure out here, but maybe that’s just the way life is. And when you add in all the violence and terrorism and hatred and racism and guns on top of that, it’s almost too much to bear--whether you’re in prison or out. Everything is so precarious and combustible—it could get pretty ugly if the wrong person, some demagogue, lights a match.”

I’m pretty sure that Larry Ingber and Betsy Hull are hanging on in California through these mulitples crises.

Old people are tough.

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