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the greater fool
“If the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise.” William Blake
JANE TRIMBLE, JACK TRIMBLE AND REMY BENTON—all thirty-eight, are an odd and often intemperate triangle that initially formed inside of a group of eight journalism students during their university freshmen years. Sixteen years have passed since graduation. With a heavy list of insecurities bred into her by overprotective parents, Jane feared for her future and made a hasty decision after graduation—she married Jack. The marriage produced a daughter, JESSIE now ten. Having recently reached the end of her tether, Jane takes their daughter and leaves Jack, but personal financial restrictions limit her options and she moves in with her parents. Her decision to leave was made with careful consideration and was done mainly because her daughter was showing the same suffocation she has been feeling.
Jane had been promised a promotion at the national magazine she has worked at for six years, but due to circumstances beyond her control all promotions were frozen after she had made her move. The extra income was going to be used as security for her and her daughter to live on their own so for now they’re stuck. She feels that a monster story is needed to thrust her into the spotlight and force the magazine to retract her freeze and she finds that story with a survivor of the Yugoslav Wars. But the man refuses to speak about his past.
She trusts her instincts and she is determined to get the story. In her desperation, she runs over her friends in an attempt to reach her goal. She also agrees to meet with another friend who has pined for her since college, but he fails to show up for their rendezvous. On her way home, she crashes her car in the rain and suffers a concussion.
Jack is intractable, unable to see that Jane has grown as a person and as a writer, while he has largely remained the same. He believes in the family unit above all else, refuses to accept Jane’s reasons for leaving and has asserted on numerous occasions his willingness to secure reconciliation. His obsession has affected his performance at work. He has been a general news reporter at a Toronto daily since shortly after graduation—hired the same week as Jane, but while Jane has moved on, he remains.
Remy and Jack have been on opposing sides of most everything—mostly Jane. Remy is a speechwriter for a Conservative Party that is trailing in the polls. He is willing to do anything, including the manipulation of his friends, to win the election. As an investigation into a possible corruption case involving a Conservative councillor by the newspaper where Jack is employed, Remy is asked by the party to tamp down the smouldering fire while Jack, sent onto the campaign trail because of a known relationship with a campaign member, is asked to bring the kerosene. The outcome could not only decide the election but possibly end their careers.
Jane wants a new future but can’t shake the past. Jack wants to reclaim the past at the expense of the future, and Remy wants to use the past to secure his future. Who is The Greater Fool?
Purchase HereA WALKING PARODY
This is the awakening of an impassive man after his meticulously woven existence is ripped apart. The Donkey (GK Chesterton’s poem) is the thread that documents a man’s emotional growth, or lack thereof.
Boyd Adamson believes in a simple life; marriage, children, solid career, comfortable home—middle class values; which Grace also thought she wanted when she married him. But the pedantic routine of their lives slowly erodes her commitment and after thirteen years of marriage, and three children, she decides she wants more. She tried to express her unhappiness to him, but he never listened; he thought her unhappiness was temporary—and since he had only received idle threats, he reckoned she couldn’t be that unhappy. Then one spring afternoon, another ordinary day teaching English at the local high school, he opens the door to an empty house. Other than some basic amenities, there is little to remind him of the life he once led.
He’s confused; he’s outside of his comfort zone. He doesn’t understand. His only outside interest is a local squash club membership—which more often entails four men sitting around a table, drinking and complaining. One of his squash friends, Brian Sedgwick carries the memory of an unspeakable tragedy and is given great latitude for his unruly behaviour.
Sedgewick was running late for work, some years ago, and reluctantly accepted his six-year-old daughter’s assertion that she was fine to be dropped off at the curb in front of her school. He kept an eye on the rear-view mirror as he drove away and he witnessed a passing car bounce over the curb and strike his daughter. Her death led to the end of his marriage and to the end of his career as he didn’t care about anything anymore. He is slowly pieced his life back together, a plan which includes occasional exercise and consistent social interaction at the club. Sedgewick recognizes another lost soul in Boyd and suggests they take an overseas summer adventure as a remedy for their pain.
This is a big decision for Boyd, a big change, but after another attempt at reconciliation with his wife fails, he chooses big change. An excursion through Europe by train—the adventure he imagined as a youth after reading Morley Callaghan’s That Summer in Paris, which he takes with him as his guide. The day after the school year ends, both men board a plane for Brussels.
As would be expected when two lost souls embark an excursion—they get lost. Sedgewick leaves Boyd alone at night in whichever city they visit, which is difficult for Boyd as he has never been alone in an unfamiliar setting, having gone from his mother’s house to his marriage house—a wedding gift from Grace’s quite well-off parents. To cope with being alone in a foreign land, he turned to his guide which brought his repressed imagination to the surface. He begins to speak to Morley Callaghan and ask for advice. Boyd is urged to seek retribution for a theft in a Paris train station and confront the thief; a confrontation that leaves him bruised and battered. Morley’s image fades as he hears a female voice ask why he would want to get beat up.
If epiphanies are real, Boyd experiences his first. He sees the woman before she walks away, and then sees her again in the terminal in Brindisi as he and Sedgewick are waiting to board the ferry to Greece. Nina is traveling through Europe with two friends she met in Munich, Claudia and Annette; as vagabonds do, the five travelers agreed be together—at least until Athens and then, if they are still getting along, onto Mykonos.
The island triggers emotions deep inside of Boyd; his attraction for Nina and her seeming attraction for him. One night, as Sedgewick is sleeping, he persuaded by the three women to tell Sedgewick’s tragic story. The next morning Claudia and Annette receive news from home and need to leave, and they want Sedgewick to go with them. Sedgewick accepts. Boyd and Nina travel to Austria together where they become lovers. One morning, in a hotel room in Salzburg, he wakes to find her gone. Epiphanies like apparitions fade.
the corridor
His search for redemption takes JOHN CARLO (40) down a treacherous road and inside a hostile arena where, like ancient gladiators, he must fight for his life.
His rage can be unrelenting. When John Carlo is provoked by a notorious, scornful rat, he borders on committing murder, but an epiphany causes him to relent. The action though results in a conviction for assault and he is sentenced to eighteen-months in prison. Tired of being enslaved to an uncompromising rage, he embraces prison therapy and learns his anger is born out of a hatred for his father who he has not seen in twenty-six years, and that redemption can only be achieved by seeking closure with the man. But ten months before his release date, his father is murdered.
Closure can still be reached, he believes, and redemption attained by finding his father’s killer. As soon as he is released from prison, he seeks to learn about a man he knows nothing about. He learns the basics from his closest family members—cousin MARCUS (30), stepmother AGNES (55) and stepsister ANGELINA (16). He considers his two uncles to be suspects since they long ago cut his father and Marcus’s father out of the family’s burgeoning empire and forced their brothers to struggle on their own. In his meeting with them, MICHAEL (67) produces his father’s wallet and inside is a folded index card with the personal information of the man (ANDREW) purported to be his father’s final business accomplice.
The investigation leads from Andrew to an old girlfriend (MARGARET). She seduces him and lures him into the midst of a criminal organization in flux where he encounters physical beatings, threats from both sides of the law, and guns constantly being pointed at his head. When both Andrew and Margaret are killed, the police accuse him of being involved. He may have changed paths but he is faced with the same options—another prison sentence or a violent death. He creates a third option.
John Carlo convinces the detectives that his uncle is the financier behind the operation and he volunteers to be the pawn in a police sting. The organization is in the process of being commandeered by a new operator. He meets with the new crime leader (ROEBUCK) and details his plan to take control of his uncle’s empire and then hand much of it to her. He explains that his father was cut out of the empire and that his greatest desire is to see his uncle suffer. After much deliberation, serious consternation and multiple threats on his life, Roebuck accepts the deal but warns that a double cross will earn him the same fate as Andrew and Margaret. At that moment, the door bursts open and police officers swarm the room. John Carlo was wired for sound.
He has survived the war, but he is no closer to finding his father’s killer. He and Marcus review the investigation and come to the realization that they have been looking in the wrong place. They rush to see Agnes but she refuses to let him inside her house in his agitated state. He promises to remain calm. They listen as Agnes describes the circumstances surrounding the murder and admits to knowing who killed his father. The revelation comes as a shock.
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