Life in Pieces by Christopher Profeta - Sneak Peek, Interview & Excerpt

An unemployed stay at home dad opens the paper one morning to find he is running for congress. A young man struggles to hold on to a life that is slipping away, and meets the love of his life. And somewhere, a crazy old man couldn't care less about any of it.

In the new novel from award winning author Christopher Profeta, all these lives come gracefully together to show that we are never too old to come of age.

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

Christopher Profeta is a stay at home father of two by day, and a writing instructor by night.  He has released a collection of short stories and poems called “Skyful of Love,” and his debut novel, “Life in Pieces” will be released on February 28, 2012.  He currently lives in Clawson, MI with his wife and kids.

INTERVIEW

Tell us about your current release.

"Life in Pieces" tells the story of an unemployed stay-at-home-dad who wakes up one morning and reads the paper only to find out he’s running for congress. This is based, in part, on a story here in Michigan back in 2010 when the Democratic Party put fake Tea Party candidates on the ballot to siphon votes away from Republicans. I read a story in the Detroit Free Press about one of the people whose name they used as a candidate, and I just thought it was hysterical.

In the second "piece" of the story, Michael Langley, a college freshman, struggles to find his place in a new setting that doesn't make much sense to him. When he finally meets a group of friends that make him feel at home, he realizes that if he wants to build a life with what might be the woman of his dreams, he'll have to give up everything he thought he ever wanted.

The third “piece” was my favorite to write.  Somewhere in all of this, there’s a crazy old man who couldn't care less about either of these stories. This last "piece" follows two old lovers who have figured out a way to ignore the struggles of the world around them and be comforted only by their love as they reach the end of their earthly lives together, and resolve the conflicts of their past.  These are just your classic older, retired people who have said, I’ve lived my life, I’m done caring about anything.

In "Life in Pieces," all these stories come gracefully together to show that we’re never too old to come of age.

Is there one passage in your book that you feel gets to the heart of your book and would encourage people to read it?  If so, can you share it?

Actually, there is.  When the crazy old man character is asked by the character running for congress about his political point of view, his answer, to me, sums up a lot of what “Life in Pieces” is all about.

“While this may seem like a strange story, the only reason I tell it is that you asked me how much power I thought the federal government should have.  I really don’t know how to answer the question other than with that old Shakespeare quote, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’  And so I guess, given this story, I don’t think the government has too much power, in fact, I don’t think it has any power.”

What was the most surprising thing you learned while writing this book?

That I had it in me.  It has been a dream of mine for a while to not just write a book, but to write a book that I felt proud of.  When I finished writing “Life in Pieces,” I said to my wife, “This book is everything I’ve wanted to say about everything for a long time.”  That feelings are more powerful than thoughts, that the world is more powerful than the people who run it, that love is truly everywhere.  I guess, overall, I was most surprised by how positive and uplifting this book ended up being.

Has your wife read the book?

I did dedicate it to her, but no, I don’t think she’s gotten past the first chapter or two.  Most people in my family don’t read my work.  They’ve bought books from me in the past, and I frequently give my mom stories of mine to read, but I don’t really come from a family of readers.  I also sometimes wonder if they’re scared to get into my head.  It’s a crazy place, I know, but I’m pretty happy there.

Tell us about your family.

Like the main character in “Life in Pieces,” I’m a stay at home dad.  My wife works full time and I teach writing at night and on the weekends.  I have a two year old daughter and a three year old daughter, and I am thankful for the hour or two they give me each day to write and work while they nap.  Family life is pretty hectic, but other than writing, the only other dream I’ve ever had from a very young age was to be a husband and have a family.  In spite of the stress, I really do love every minute of my life.  And that’s one of the main points that comes across in the book, the importance of family, and the unmatched ability a person’s family has to solve pretty much any problem, even the ones it created.

What do your wife and family think about your writing career?

They’re more supportive than I could imagine.  I did a book signing up in Traverse City, Michigan and pretty much my entire extended family was there.  It was a huge success and very comforting to know that the people I love most are behind me.  I’ve been writing for most of my life, but I’m new to publishing, and because of the encouragement of the family I’ve been blessed with – and I’m not just talking wife and kids, I mean parents, my brother, in-laws, cousins, etc. – I feel very confident that I’m on the right path here.

EXCERPT

     There were so many hopes pinned on Mikey’s first year of college that they seemed to weigh it down, dooming it to failure.  He and his parents all believed that he would be able to become a new person simply by being in a new place.  But location, while the most important factor in selling real estate, has little impact on a young man’s happiness.  As they loaded up the car with old furniture pulled from their attic – the chair Mikey remembered his dad reading the newspaper in when Mikey was a kid, and the coffee table he’d cracked his head on after flipping over the back of the sofa – all three of them struggled hard not to realize that things wouldn’t get better on their own… And by the time his father had backed the old minivan into a spot on the lawn in front of his dorm – his new home – Mikey had gotten himself to a place where he firmly believed the next few months would play out as he wanted, even if he knew they wouldn’t.

            There were cars and people everywhere; the campus was a mess of people.  Looking out the window, Mikey felt at once overwhelmed and excited.  An overweight man with plastered down black hair and khaki shorts that, while they may have fit him nicely six years ago, now found the trip around his waist and legs to be a slightly more difficult one.  In a high and whiny voice, he asked Mikey’s dad for their last name, then looked it up on a list.  He then informed them that Mikey’s room was through the doorway on the other side of the building, a few hundred feet that way, he said as he pointed.  When Mikey’s dad said they had no problem walking from where they were, the chubby dormitory attendant laughed a confused laugh and kept talking until Mikey’s dad agreed to move his van down a few spots.  When they had re-parked, the same man ran to the car to greet them and tell them that they would be much better off in that spot, that the proximity to the door was much more favorable to moving in Mikey’s things.

            As the family brought in the first load, they were all eager to see if Mikey’s roommate had arrived yet.  All they knew was that his name was Troy Dennis, that he was from a small town in northern Michigan, and that he had been unreachable for the entire summer, preventing him and Mikey from coordinating furniture for their small room.  It appeared that the mystery surrounding Troy would go on for a little while longer, as he had yet to arrive as the Langley’s brought in Mikey’s belongings.

            They spent an hour or so carrying in the small things, clothes, CD’s, toiletries, and some personal belongings.  When they were finished, there was still no sign of Troy.  When the same chubby parking lot attendant with desperate short pants approached Mr. Langley about moving his car, he explained the situation.  It was then that the kid watching the parking lot showed his true ineptitude as he floundered for a way of dealing with the situation.  As he spit out a few random and disconnected words, he looked about nervously for someone to pass the problem on to, but there was no one.  With an entire morning’s worth of unpleasant interaction with this person, Mikey’s dad finally asked him for his name.  J.R.

            “It’s nice to meet you, J.R.,” Mr. Langley said sincerely.  “It doesn’t seem like there’s anyone waiting for this spot.  Do you mind if we just wait here for a while until my son’s roommate shows up so that we don’t have to carry all these things into the room only to have to take them out again if there isn’t enough space?”

            Mr. Langley’s voice showed no traces of condescending, but J.R. knew it was intended.  It was a tone Mr. Langley was brilliant at creating, and Mikey had seen him do it so many times.  He had watched him make people cry at the airport when their flight was delayed.  He had seen him argue entire entrees off their bill at restaurants.  He had even witnessed his father badger customer service representatives at retail stores into letting him return damaged items for which he had no receipt and had, in fact, broken himself.  And he always did it this way, appearing friendly, but with a tone and posture that let the other person know that any refusal to acquiesce to his demands would not be tolerated.

Every time he witnessed it, Mikey became instantly ashamed of his family.  While he loved his father more than anything, when he saw him act this way, he seemed to Mikey to be more like a professional politician than the mild mannered accountant he actually was.  When he saw his dad attempting to throw around weight he didn’t carry, Mikey felt pressured to do something to let the person who was being bullied know that he did not condone his father’s behavior.  In these situations, he felt that person’s eyes on him, begging him to do something to call his father off, demanding of Mickey an explanation for how such a seemingly nice person as him could be complicit in such meanness.  This time, he felt J.R.’s eyes on him from all the way across the parking lot, but by the time Mikey had gotten there to stop his dad from embarrassing him, J.R. had already agreed to let them leave their van there until Troy and his family arrived.

            This was true of Mikey’s character in most situations.  He had a dangerous way of putting him in the center of everything.  Even if the flight his father was arguing over had not been for him, if the entrée in question had not in fact been his own, and if he had nothing to do with the item his father was attempting to return, Mikey instinctively looked at his father’s behavior as an indictment of himself.  This was not so much a result of any ill-feelings he held toward his father, they got along as perfectly as a father and a teenage son could.  Instead, this was a direct product of Mikey’s own unique brand of narcissism, a vanity, born out of low self-esteem, that while it was intended to be nothing more than a mere distraction from his own self loathing, had actually taken hold and created in Mikey a warped conception of the world in which everything that people did in some way impacted him.

            When Troy and his parents finally showed up, the scene with J.R. replayed itself again as Mr. Langley smiled and shook Mr. Dennis’s hand assuring him that, even though J.R. had agreed to let them wait as long as they needed to, they had been told they had to move their car, and so they simply decided to unload the larger pieces of furniture – the chair, the television, the stereo system.  Mikey tried his best to stop his dad from unloading their van, but the more he protested, the louder their conversation became, and he sensed he was embarrassing himself more than his family was, so he was forced by his own self consciousness to let his father do what he wanted.  And as Troy and his dad easily gave in to Mr. Langley before he even had a chance to really put the pressure on, two things became clear to Mikey. 

One was just how different Troy and his family were from anyone he’d ever met.  They seemed to see through Mr. Langley completely.  With a sly smile passed through the Dennis family, his lie appeared clear to all of them.  And it was an obvious lie.  Why would someone who was coming on so strong now by insisting that the larger pieces of furniture would not be taken from the room have allowed himself to be pushed around by the fat little kid out front patrolling the parking lot?  But what was so shocking to Mikey was that, while they all knew what his father was doing, none of them cared.  Instead of seeing it as Mr. Langley’s overbearing way of getting his way, they looked at it as less work they had to do unloading their car, and they were genuinely happy about it.

The other thing Mikey realized, and he wasn’t quite sure where the realization came from, was the true source of the embarrassment he suffered at the hands of his father.  He had spent a short lifetime convincing himself that the way his father treated other people, as if he was entitled to their back breaking service, was something he couldn’t bear to watch.  The reality, however, was that what brought the most shame upon him was that he knew this talent his father had for getting exactly what he wanted out of the world was a skill that was completely out of reach for him, that he would never be able to make his life, let alone the lives of people around him, move in ways that were beneficial to him.  It would be going too far to characterize this reaction as jealousy, it was more a paternal idolization of a quality Mikey knew he did not possess and instead decided to make himself believe he didn’t need.

            Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Dennis were slowly unpacking their son, chatting with Mikey’s parents, and exchanging inside jokes with each other about their own college days.  These jokes, despite their overt sexual nature, did not seem to bring any discomfort upon Troy, rather, he actually laughed at a few.  He was a pudgy baby faced kid who, with his long, straight, dark red hair pulled tightly behind his ears into a pony tail, looked more like an elf than a person.  His body refused to stay still, and as he participated willingly and comfortably in conversations with Mikey’s parents that Mikey would never be involved in with another kid’s parents, he bobbed his head without control.  At one point, Troy walked across the room to a stack of CD’s that were sitting on the desk Mikey had temporarily claimed as his own.  He rifled through them, head continuing to move up and down at an increasingly feverish pace as he looked at the albums by the Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Pearl Jam, and Blur – bands that were well past their commercial and cultural prime by August of 1999 when Mikey and Troy first met.  When he was done invading his new roommate’s privacy, Troy looked up and Mikey with a big dumb smile stretched crookedly across his face.  “We’re going to be best friends,” he predicted.

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