Believe it, Charlie: Don't Worry Baby is LIVE

One day not too long ago, I told my son Charlie a story that happened during the first month of my marriage to his pop.

 

Charlie, who is in his 30s, looked me in the eye and responded, "I'm sorry, Mum, but I don't believe that."

 

Believe it, Charlie.

  

I'm thrilled to announce that my new book, Don't Worry Baby - A 1972 Adventure on Wheels, is LIVE on Kindle, priced at $3.99.

 

You don't need a Kindle to download my book. Simply go to the Kindle website and follow the instructions for putting the software on your home computer. I put it on my laptop in five minutes, and I'm a technological weenie.

 
At this point, I am not offering the book on Nook.

The paperback version should be out soon. The cost will be around $13.00 through Amazon.

Here's a description of the story, from the book's back cover; the second paragraph refers to my son Charlie's reaction to my tale:

***

It’s the day after Max and Ginny’s wedding. Against the advice of people who love them, they head south, away from Wisconsin, in a rickety van. Armed with love and not much more, they search for a place where more than icicles grow in March–so they can live off the land. They’ve got a thousand bucks but no major credit card, and only sixty days before Max will be considered AWOL from the National Guard. On their journey, they tangle with a bodacious bombardier, a gelled judge, a grumpy Greek grandfather, a stubborn stick-shift, cantankerous cops, dumbfounding dialects, high-minded hitch-hikers, insistent insects…and each other.

Don’t Worry Baby is a love letter to the 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964…and a light-hearted history lesson to those who came afterward and can’t believe such events could ever happen. They could.

  ***

The book is a fictionalized account of the first month of my marriage, when Mike and I lived on the road and almost everything that could go wrong did so. I would say that ninety percent of the book is true. The fiction part comes where I compress some events into that one month. Also, I have created some "composite" characters, as they say - where one character has the qualities of several different real people. And I have changed names to protect the guilty.

 

My first novel, Dog Woman, was about fifty percent true, based on a story I wrote for the newspaper in 1990. I loved Dog Woman, but it was a much more serious story. After writing it, I had to treat myself to a few laughs. I smiled a lot while I wrote Don't Worry Baby. I think you will, too.

 

Just as mothers love all their children equally, but in different ways, so do authors love their books. Dog Woman is my serious child. Don't Worry Baby is the likable kid who gets in trouble.

 

I love 'em both. And I think you will, too.