“Claude had a mother and two sisters, older, a grandmother — in his memories, a shadow — three angry aunts, (one married with children: a boy in diapers, another boy, and a girl who liked to tickle his testes on occasion) and, for a time, a father.”
And so it was... We live, we love, we marvel, we become the lost, we suffer loss, we seek our joys and reach for ourpotentials.
Our lives, as was his, are made up of the people with whom — and because of whom — we grow, whether they remain or vanish with the dawn. There are some who go abruptly, leaving enormous holes where they once had stood, and some who remain as dependable as the air.
The Book of Days more than follows the life, the soul, the heart and thoughts of Claude, a boy who wanted to draw, a youth who had to see, and a man compelled to put himself on a canvas. The twelve days visited invite a reader to inhabit this person, who sought only to find honesty and permanence among those who touched him, and within himself.
Claude’s story is told in twelve chapters, each covering adifferent but significant day in his long life.
Through them all, a reader will find the quintessential American man of the late twentieth century: a boy, a friend, a man, a teacher, a father.
The author considers the Book of Days to be the most honest and humane book he has ever written. Join him, and you’ll fall in love several times.
Website: http://www.charlesbechtel.com
Born: Spring Lake, North Carolina, April, 1953, fourth day, five minutes past midnight (thus late for my parents’ anniversary, which set a behavioral standard for all such future events.)
Educated: A long while back, when colleges offered to improve human beings attending their classes, not merely dedicate themselves to making a person employable. Ahh, the good old days.
Undergraduate degree: English.
Master degree: English.
Marriage: To Manuela, the finest woman on Earth, by the accounts of many more than myself. Two daughters: Elizabeth (Baby Beth) and Manuela (Meme), who each in turn delivered into my life some ladies of inestimable worth: Sky (b. 2003) Lucy (b. 2007) and Mia (b. 2008.) Though I gave to each huge chunks of my heart, doing so increased heart size.
Work History: Let’s say I worked.
What I do for fun:Everything. If it is not fun, I quickly stop doing it. (see Work, above)
Writing Philosophy: Make sense by appealing to the senses.