8 Days a Week

For 16 years Sean has lived in a rustic cabin in the woods and driven into town every day to work with his cousin as landscaper and handyman while navigating through the personal issues of his female customers, his wife's drastic mood swings, his eldest daughter's struggles for independence from her controlling mother, and the distance his wife has fostered between him and his two younger children, while operating his business on almost no money. Sean works to find the solutions to the family problems as tensions erupt and explode. (Includes one poem in the story.) THE BACK STORY: 8 Days a Week There are many historical accounts of the lives of the "great men" of history but what about the everyday "work men" that I came to know from working in my father's landscaping and handyman business? Their stories may be great and untold; stories of hardship, disappointment, and ultimately an incredible drive to provide for one's family at great personal sacrifice to self. Despite the male privilege of our society, especially for whites, this does not guarantee good lives for men. And physical dominance (generally speaking) does not mean that men are never abused, never emotionally manipulated or taken advantage of by women. Further, it is an often untold truth what social and emotional terrorists women can be to girls and to other women and the irrevocable destruction this can wreak on individuals and families. This novel is the convergence of social issues and family drama exploding on the page. This story lived in my head for a few years, gestating, then I wrote it out by hand, to over 72,000 words, in under three weeks at 25. This was before I'd had any education (I was home-schooled and had to teach myself to read). It was always very important to me to write, edit, and self-publish it before I had any education to prove a very strong point about the value of people from a working class background; of all people from all walks of life. Unfortunately I never had any money for a marketing budget so it was nearly impossible to drive any sales. For the photo art direction I chose to emphasize the working class nature of the characters' lives; there are two cover photos. One shows protagonist Sean Flangan's work life: tools in grass and a general dead-end feel. (And my trustee electric blue/silver Oregon Leatherman Juice multi-tool makes a cameo.) The other is a woods in Oregon, the setting of much of the story. It's a very beautiful place but can also feel very confining and isolating. The author photo is a humorous picture my father took of me at work after we'd "culled" some blackberry vines; I'm holding a rifle as if it's a trophy I've shot. Just a joke for two people who never hunted animals (he did teach me how to shoot though; it was a great bonding moment between us). (From the back page of my website: http: //www.avacollopbooks.weebly.com)