Book Blog

When my feet first touched Indian soil in 1986, I felt as if I had finally found my home. Since that time, my destiny has led me back to India time and time again, first to study sitar in Shimla, then to study Sanskrit in Varanasi and then to live here continuously from 2001 until 2010. These trips etched in my heart and mind images, feelings and ideas which shaped my world view and the subsequent pattern of my life. The sunrise painting the cliffs of the Himalayas at dawn, the prayerful rituals on the banks of the Ganges, solitary treks to the sacred temples in the mountains; these images became an indelible part of my inner life.

Pilgrimage on the Path of Love unraveled in the jungles of the Himalayas in Manali. I used to come to sit beneath the towering deodar trees in the early morning when the sun poured its liquid radiance through the leafy bowers. The jungle in its cool still verdant beauty invited introspection, and my fingers raced over the blank paper in an effort to keep up with the rapid tempo of thoughts and feelings flitting like fireflies through my mind.

During my travels in the mountains of Manali and Ladakh, each person I met shared a fragment of their life with me and the multi-colored fragments, like beads on a thread, wove the necklace I carried with me, as an inner adornment, a cherished memory of a country to which I felt I belonged. If I had to choose a country to which my inner being is most resonant, I would unhesitatingly choose India.

In Pilgrimage on the Path of Love, we enter the interior world of a woman on the spiritual path and we see how the spiritual dimension of life in India fosters in her a deeper understanding of the ultimate quest of human life: enlightenment.

Like the protagonist in my new crime thriller, This Guy Walks Into a Bar, I was once asked to ghostwrite a book by the mistress of a notorious crime boss. Unlike Joe Campbell, the everyman Average Joe from TGWIAB, I backed out, mainly out of fear.

But, over the years, I've often wondered, What If?

On a cold, rainy night many moons ago, I sat in a threadbare booth in a dimly lit bar across from a mysterious woman who just had to have her story told. Through the haze of smoke rising from her endless drags on a cigarette, I listened in awe as she regaled me with her fantastical stories.

My initial thought was that she was delusional. But as the minutes ticked by, I came to realize she was the real deal. Maybe it was the world-weary history etched into her face. A face that looked tired and worn beyond its years. Or perhaps it was the richly detailed stories that seemed too vivid to be fiction. 

What truly convinced me in the end was the stack of photos, mostly faded and tattered, that validated her seemingly implausible stories in living color.

I think about that night from time to time, wondering if I made the right decision. Could I have had a bestseller under my belt — or would my life have become a nightmare as it did for my hapless protagonist?

I'll never know the answer to that question. But it sure inspired me to write one hell of a story.