Audiobook: Tales From the Dew Drop Inne

AUDIOBOOK: Memoirs From The Asylum

FROM AUDIBLE.COM: http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00C2C602G&qid=1364517229&sr=1-1 FROM AMAZON.COM: http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-from-the-Asylum/dp/B00C32QVRO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364518648&sr=1-1&keywords=.Memoirs+from+the+Asylum%2C+audio

Memoirs From The Asylum - Audio Sample

Some lessons learned while running the maze

Some lessons learned while running the maze Every morning I tell myself, “Ken, you are not really a rat. You are not in a maze.” As a trained psychologist that is such an easy metaphor. I assure myself that I am not looking for a piece of cheese hidden down a series of paths by an omnipotent experimenter who wants to see if I can learn. Considering how many questions there are and how little I have learned over the past seventy plus years, my mantra may be mistaken. Maybe I am a rat in the maze and a slow learner to boot. But I have learned some things. As a younger brother, I have, for example, learned to trust but not too much. After all, how many times does a kid have to be played before he learns that his big brother isn’t always his friend, doesn’t always want him around? As a result, I know that friends and family are important and that they usually care; but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to work at living and plan to take care of myself. Translation into my current career as a writer – market, market, market. If I don’t sell my books, nobody else will. I at least take comfort in the fact that most of my friends and family either buy copies or at least make believe that they will and don’t ask me for freebies. For the record, my brother buys but does not read my books. Another moral? Be grateful for little things. Another lesson from childhood: I loved dogs, at least the idea of dogs; we didn’t have one so what did I know? I also loved riding my bicycle. In case you don’t know it, some dogs don’t like bikes. In those days dogs ran free, and the ones that didn’t like bicycles would chase a kid riding down the street. Yes, we rode on the street and nobody knew what a helmet was. The dog that bit me was a collie, which made the insult even worse because of all the dogs I didn’t know collies were my favorites. Lassie Come Home and A Dog Named Lad had already been read and reread. “Grrr.” “Ouch.” “Mommy, Mommy.” You can imagine the details. The lesson learned – what we most love can often be the source of greatest pain. In case you don’t get it, think of your first love – that first rebuff or breakup. Remember, too, the rejection note garnered by your first literary submission. Enough said? The thing is that I didn’t stop loving dogs. As an adult, I owned a number of them. Most were great, but my wife and I had one Corgi who hid under the bed and made herself and us miserable. I have over the years written and tried to write a number of books. I have loved them all when I started. Some have given me great pleasure and I hope have done the same for readers, but some of the others just led to frustration. Their early pages were stored – at one time in closets now on computer drives – with the hope that someday I would go back to them, but I know that I won’t. I have learned that as attractive as a book idea may be, it may just end in disappointment or perhaps just hiding under the bed. Still, I do not give up my writing just because one story or novel bites my creative hand nor because a work is rejected. I do not turn my back on what I love because I might get hurt. No, I keep writing. Success or no, I cannot stop my fingers from their keyboard. Which brings up one more lesson I have learned, perhaps the strangest of all life’s little truths. To explain it I must tell you why I learned to read. Quite young and naturally curious, I asked my father where babies came from. He informed me that he was too busy and that we would talk later. That wasn’t going to happen, but I knew the answer lay in books, specifically my uncle’s medical books, which were stored in our attic while he was in the Army. I set out to master the skill of reading. Highly motivated, I learned quickly, but not from my uncle’s books; they were written in Latin. It didn’t matter: I had both the joy of reading and a great lesson: The goal I had originally sought was not reached, but the journey had become its own reward. I am a writer; I love to write. Perhaps there is cheese at the end of the maze. Perhaps there is fame, fortune, a movie deal, a mention in The Times. Perhaps? But it doesn’t matter so much because I love to write. If I am in that maze, at least I’m a happy little rat scurrying about. VISIT KEN AT: http://www.amazon.com/Kenneth-Weene/e/B002M3EMWU/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1345764000&sr=1-2-ent

ATTMP AUTHOR KEN WEENE

ATTMP author Ken Weene checking out one of his short stories at local Barnes.

ATTMP AUTHORS ON THE AIR!

What a month it is for our own ATTMP authors.

We are thrilled to have as our guests this Thursday evening none other than Ms. Barbara Woolley and Kaycee Nilson or Kandace as you may know her.

 

Please share their show page link with others and try to support our newest authors by catching the show this Thursday evening.

 

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/monicabrinkmanandoana/2012/01/27/candid-chat-with-authors-barbara-woolley-and-kaycee-nilsen

 

The show date is Thursday, January 26th @ 9PM EST, 8PM CST, 7PM Mountain, 6PM PST.

 

The genre's are fascinating. Can't wait to talk with our show guests.

 

And while we are at it, Mr. Kenneth Weene will be talking about his newly released and highly anticipated book of short stories, Tales From the Dew Drop Inne, the following Thursday, February 2nd.

 

It's ATTMP time all the way!

 

Here is that link if you'd like to get a reminder sent to you from the show page.

 

 

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/monicabrinkmanandoana/2012/02/03/an-interspective-look-at-humanity-with-author-kenneth-weene

NEW RELEASE!

Tales From the Dew Drop Inne

Authored by Kenneth Weene

"Tales from the Dew Drop Inne" reads like a darkly humorous sitcom. The tone is both heartfelt and deliciously irreverent, showing that one does not need to hate humanity to appreciate the humor of life. Here are tales of drifters, alcoholics, religious renegades, veterans, and drag queens set in pub that is at once a confessional, a circus, and a psychiatric hospital. --Marina Julia Neary, author of "Martyrs & Traitors: a Tale of 1916"

About the author:
A New Englander by upbringing and inclination, Kenneth Weene is a teacher, psychologist and pastoral counselor by education. Having retired to Arizona, where he lives with his wife of forty-five years, Ken took decided to fulfill a childhood passion and become a writer.

Ken's poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous publications - both print and electronic. Tales From the Dew Drop Inne is Ken's third novel, following Memoirs From the Asylum and Widow's Walk.

With two other novels and a novella waiting in the wings and a movie script currently under construction, Ken feels more creative now then he has ever been

http://allthingsthatmatterpress.com

KEN WHO?

Just who is Kenneth Weene anyway?

Life itches and torments Kenneth Weene like pesky flies. Annoyed, he picks up a pile of paper to slap at the buzzing and often whacks himself on the head. Each whack is another story. At least having half-blinded himself, he has learned to not wave the pencil about. Ken will, however, write on until the last gray cell has retreated and there are no longer these strange ideas demanding his feeble efforts. So many poems, stories, novels; and more to come.

So far Ken has two novels published by All Things That Matter Press and a third will be out soon.

The first is Widow’s Walk, the story of a woman restarting her life and her two adult children. Widow’s Walk is a tale of love, sexuality, religion, and spirit. A box of Kleenex is an essential accessory when reading this emotional and meaningful novel.

Memoirs From the Asylum is set in a state psychiatric hospital. Full of tragedy, humor, and pathos, Memoirs reminds us that there are many forms of asylums and that it is all to easy to give up the most essential human freedom, the freedom to choose who we are. More than anything, Memoirs From the Asylum is a book for people who love words; it is a book that asks to be read aloud.

Coming soon is Tales From the Dew Drop Inne: Because there’s one in every town. The folks who hang out at this neighborhood bar are struggling to know that they too belong. This is a book of intersecting stories that illustrate the humanity of us all and our search for a place in which to belong.

Trained as a psychologist and an ordained minister, Ken knows that the human heart is the most elemental place to begin any story. Having also written a good amount of poetry, he strives to make the language of his books unique. Ken also brings the clear-eyed realism of a born and bred New Englander to his writing. The overall results are books that are especially moving and well-written.

You can learn more about Ken at http://www.authorkenweene.com

A good link for more about Widow’s Walk is:

http://vidego.multicastmedia.com/player.php?p=wbgzb2yk

For Memoirs From the Asylum visit

http://vidego.multicastmedia.com/player.php?p=nqm74a8k

Both Widow’s Walk and Memoirs From the Asylum are available in print as well as Kindle and Nook.

WEENE AND OANA

Ink Slinger's Whimsey: A Year in Review: WITS' Top 15 Book Picks for 2010

Book Title: Memoirs from the Asylum
Author: Kenneth Weene
ISBN: 978-0984421954
Publisher: All Things that Matter Press, 2010

This tragi-comedic novel takes the reader inside the asylum, inside the worlds of three central characters: a narrator who has taken refuge from his fears of the world, a psychiatrist whose own life has been damaged by his father's depression, and a catatonic schizophrenic whose world is trapped inside a crack in the wall opposite her bed. The best aspect of the book is how the author has written from the perspective or inner thoughts of the characters. This is done with such realism, understanding and truth that it is easy to relate with the patient’s fears, frustrations, joys and triumphs. It is obvious that the author is writing from a deeper understanding of human motivation and psychosis. His treatment of his characters is compassionate and without judgment, allowing the reader to formulate their own opinions and confront their own preconceptions and prejudices. Well crafted, Memoirs from the Asylum proves itself in the great tradition of writing.

Thank you for this great review!

Why Bother Writing

Why Bother Writing by Kenneth Weene (author of Widow’s Walk and Memoirs From the Asylum)

Why bother? Isn’t it easier to not write, not get frustrated with all those rejection letters, the people who think you should have changed this character or that outcome? Then there’s the P.R., the endless battle to get your book noticed.

You can obsess about your standing on Amazon, not realizing that just one order may swing your title fifty places on that list. You can contact blogger after blogger: “Please give my book some space.” Wait – I can get a pod-cast. How many listeners? Who knows.

Finally, the big moment – the royalty check for the quarter arrives. Trepidatiously you open it. There it is, barely enough to take your sweetheart out for burgers and fries or maybe hotdogs and chips. You remind yourself that getting rich was never the reason. Of course, deep in your heart you’re damning the gods because you haven’t received a film offer, one you so richly deserve and that would actually put some money in your pocket.

So, I ask again, why bother? Why write? Maybe you should give up. You could find a different obsession, something that would also take up hours of your time. You could learn to play a musical instrument. You could work on your yoga. You could …

Forget it. You have to get back to that new short story, the one about the narrators ex-wife’s second ex-husband’s affair with the girl who turned out to be an agent of the Mossad who is following a Hamas-linked Imam, who it turns out …

Well, maybe you’ll put that plot on hold and find something a bit more believable.

Computer time.

First you do your email. There might be an opportunity to do some more marketing of the book you already have out. Maybe there’ll be an acceptance for those poems you sent out. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Lots of spam. Your nephew wonders how your writing is going. A couple of Facebook friends have posted to your wall. You work through the emails. It’s easier than actually coming up with something, so you even send out a couple of hellos. Then back to Facebook, right? An hour passes reading posts, making comments, watching Youtube clips that have been shared.

More mail has come in. Check it out. Repeat.

Wasted morning. Why do I bother? goes through your mind like a neon sign.

You imagine a kid, a teenager, gawking up at that neon sign. He’s in a big city, obviously new there. Hasn’t got a clue.

Why’s he there? A runaway? No, too trite. Long pause – long enough so the computer screen has gone dark. That doesn’t matter, you’re staring out the window and all you can see is that scene in your imagination.

Suddenly it hits you. This kid, this cornpone, country kid has come to the big city because he’s going to the conservatory. Yeah, he’s a musician, not just a musician, but a gifted … a gifted what, flutist? (Nah, too feminine for a story.) guitarist? (trite) pianist (That would do, but do I know enough about piano? Piano player stories have to be technically correct.) Trumpet, no, no, saxophone.  That’s it he’s a gifted sax player come to the conservatory. He’s got a girl back home, one he really loves, or at least he thinks he does. And, he’s missing her right now. He’s staring at that sign and feeling overwhelmed, confused, lost. He wishes she were here with him.

What’s he looking at? A phone ad. Yeah, he’s missing her and thinking about that phone ad.

Is he already accepted at the conservatory? No. He’s here for the audition. Got his sax right in his hand. So he can screw it up if he …

Yeah, that’s the conflict. How to heighten …? Somebody playing on the street. The downside, right in front of him. Make it a trumpet player.

That’s it, the beginning.

You hit a key. The computer screen comes back. Get out of email. Word. Blank document. Set margins. Set spacing. A moment. Do you want courier or times new roman? Then it begins. You begin. Words start to jet from your fingers onto the screen. You are no longer confused, no longer unsure. You are writing. You are a writer. It is what you do. That is the why, the only one that matters. You bother because it is you.

Kenneth Weene’s second novel, Memoirs From the Asylum (Published by All Things That Matter Press)is now available on Amazon. http://vidego.multicastmedia.com/player.php?p=nqm74a8k

His first novel, Widow’s Walk (also from ATTMP) is also available on Amazon

http://vidego.multicastmedia.com/player.php?p=wbgzb2yk

Ken’s short stories and poetry can be found throughout the web and in print. His website http://www.authorkenweene.com.

Memoirs From The Asylum diagnoses 5 healthy stars.

http://www.basilandspice.com/journal/72010-book-review-memoirs-from-the-asylum-by-kenneth-weene.html

The reviewer – yours truly – would like to start off with a few bits of trivia that have absolutely nothing – and at the same time everything – to do with the book under discussion.

1. Varanus exanthematicus

By now – you, the reader – are thinking to yourself:  this guy is nuts, meshuga, cuckoo, balmy and/or one brick short of a load.  The reviewer – yours truly – ardently hopes this is  
not the case.  He maintains he is not insane.  Rather, he is trying to make a point.  And the point is this:  the distinction between sanity and insanity is quite small.
This distinction is the subject of Kenneth Weene’s tragicomic novel Memoirs From The Asylum, which is a little like reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as written by Joseph Heller, who was the author of Catch-22.  Or, if that poor analogy doesn’t work for you, try this one:  the Three Stooges meet Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
To put it simply, Weene has written a shockingly funny and funnily shocking novel about life in an asylum.  It’s shocking because it exposes the abuse and mistreatment the patients suffer at the hands of the hospital’s staff.  And it’s funny because – in the end – it’s hard to tell who’s crazier, the doctors and nurses or the patients.
The narrator of the story, who is a patient, is in the asylum due to fear, fear of everything.  Many other of the patients are schizophrenics, which means they have lost touch with reality.  They suffer hallucinations, delusions and disordered thinking processes.  All of which leads to ‘abnormal behavior.’  One such patient is Marilyn.  In one reality, which is supposedly the real reality, Marilyn lives on a bed in the hospital.  She is catatonic and unresponsive.  In another reality, Marilyn lives in a crack in the wall next to her bed.  She lives there with her family – “the crack that is all truth.” 
Marilyn’s doctor is Dr. Buford Abrose, who is a first-year resident in psychiatry.  In reality, Dr. Abrose works in the asylum, treating patients.  In another reality, Dr. Abrose lives inside his head with his wife, who is a status-seeking gold-digger, who doesn’t like the fact that her husband works in a mental hospital, when he could be working elsewhere, making big bucks. 
The asylum is run by Orrin Parties, who is obsessed by paperwork.  He lacks humanity.  His ‘human touch’ has been misplaced.  And most of his staff is composed of sado-masochists, who hate their jobs, themselves, and their patients. 
The author of the book, Kenneth Weene, has not lost his ‘human touch,’ for he writes well and from the heart.  For example, when describing Mitch, who is one of the patients:  “Alzheimer’s has Mitch.  Every now and then it gets him restless, and he blows like an old geyser that’s running out of steam.  The rest of the time he wanders around talking to himself.  They say he was once a college professor.  So, it isn’t really that different; he’s just talking to himself in a new place.  Guess what?  Nobody cares.”
Memoirs From The Asylum is resplendent with such literary gems.  Weene has a real knack for putting together world-class sentences.  Humor and pathos drip from every page, along with compassion and kindness and insight.  And his narrative abilities pack a wallop that thumps your chest hard.    
Weene cares.  Which is what makes the novel so good.  Indeed, it ranks with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Girl, Interrupted for sheer cathartic storytelling.  In other words, it’s one of those novels you tell your friends about.
On the Read-O-Meter, which ranges from 1 star (sickly) to 5 stars (robust), Memoirs From The Asylum diagnoses 5 healthy stars.
Don’t miss this one!   
Memoirs From The Asylum (All Things That Matter Press/2010) By Kenneth Weene
Randall Radic is a former Old Catholic priest.  He is a graduate of the University of Arizona.  He holds a Master of Theology,  from Trinity Seminary, a Doctorate of Theology from Trinity Seminary,Th.D., and a Doctorate of Sacred Theology, S.T.D. from Agape Seminary.
After a midlife crisis, he spent time behind bars. Today, Radic has emerged a changed man.  He is the author of Gone To Hell: True Crimes of America’s Clergy (ECW Press/ Oct 2009), and A Priest in Hell: Gangs, Murderers and Snitching in a California Jail. Radic is currently working on some unusual book projects, including one titled Raising The Dead.  Visit Randall Radic Writer's Page.

MEMOIRS FROM THE ASYLUM

YOU'VE GOT TO READ IT, TO BELIEVE IT!

FROM WIDOW'S WALK TO THE ASYLUM

Widow’s Walk by Kenneth Weene tells the story of Mary Flanagan and her search for meaning, life, and love. It is also the story of her Irish roots and her immigration to America, her marriage, her husband’s life and death, and the lives of her two children. And it is the story of her relationship with Arnie Berger, a man who is totally different in background, religion, and approach to life. Theirs is a deep and meaningful love that gladdens the heart. If only things could always flow along with such ease. But they do not, and Widow’s Walk becomes a powerful tale of human pain and emotional conflict.
Recently released, Kenneth Weene’s new novel, Memoirs From the Asylum, is a comi-tragic tale of madness and sanity, of desperation and hope, of possibilities and fate. Set in a state hospital, Memoirs From the Asylum focuses on three main characters, a narrator, who has taken refuge from his terror of the world, a catatonic schizophrenic, whose mind lives within a crack in the wall opposite her bed, and a young psychiatrist, who is dealing with his own father’s depression. This is a book that will have you laughing, crying, and discussing.



An Excerpt From Widow’s Walk

People like Danny O’Brien don't just wash their cars – they bathe them with deliberation. First they get ready, which starts with the right clothes. Danny always changes into his cutoff jeans, the last pair he has left from college. He has to suck in his stomach to snap them shut, and they have long ago stopped feeling comfortable, but they represent his youth so he won’t throw them out. He doesn’t tuck his Grateful Dead T-shirt in. He probably wouldn’t have anyway, but with it hanging out no one can see if the snap on his shorts has opened. His old tennis shoes go on his bare feet, and he feels like he is ready to go back in time and play Frisbee in Hollis Quad.
His equipment, too, is laid out carefully. Sponges, clean rags, a plastic pail, the garden hose, Turtle Wash and Wax, a Dust Buster, and finally cleaners for the glass, the vinyl, the leather upholstery, the chrome, and especially the tires – the car will not be to his liking until the tires gleam – not like new, but shining beyond newness. Even the placement of the car is – to his mind – just right. It is carefully parked in a specific spot so that he can get maximum efficiency from the hose.
His neighbor, Harry Brown, is tending flowerbeds. Not particularly a lover of nature, Danny leaves that task to the gardener. "Hey, Harry, how's it going?" he calls to the neighbor, who is busily weeding around the azaleas.
"Damn weeds just keep growing." It is a ritual exchange. The two men aren’t close, but they have as many rituals as any fraternity. That is one of Danny's special qualities; his every relationship has rituals built in: little sayings or a special piece of body language that makes the other person feel that theirs is a special relationship
Danny is aware of a change in the light. He looks up and sees Kathleen watching him. He smiles. “Hi.”
She half smiles in response. Embarrassed by his notice, she starts slightly as if to move away.
"Do you like cars?" He isn’t sure where, but he knows that he has seen her before. “She’s cute enough,” he thinks. “Might as well chat her up.”
Kathleen, not having really taken a step, feels she has to respond. She smiles shyly – not flirtatious but friendly. "Actually, I don’t know much about them. I’ve never even learned how to drive."
"Seriously?" Even while he is saying this, Danny is wondering if he shouldn’t perhaps take a more serious tone, one more appropriate to the classy young woman he perceives her to be.
"Why? Is there something wrong?" She can feel herself tensing, pulling back, becoming defensive. "I always wanted to learn, but I never had the chance."
He takes another look at Kathleen and decides that she might be worth his time. "I tell you what. You help me wash, and I'll give you a driving lesson."
"I don't even know you," Kathleen responds with hesitancy.
"Harry here will vouch for me. Won't you Harry?"
"Lady, I'd stay far away from that crazy Irishman. You should never trust a man who doesn't garden."
"I don't really think I should," her voice conveys doubt and a hidden wish.
"Suit yourself. If you ever change your mind, stop by any weekend. If I'm not home, my mother almost always is. I'll tell her if a beautiful woman named …" He pauses.
At first Kathleen doesn’t understand why he is waiting. Then she wonders if it’s ok for her to answer. Finally she stammers, "My name is Kathleen, Kathleen Flanagan."
"Pleased to meet you, Kathleen Flanagan. Danny O’Brien at your service." Danny winks at her, and Kathleen feels a rush of confusion – her face flushes. "We Irish folks have to stick together especially around a Brit like Harry." Danny’s sweeping gesture toward his neighbor sprays her with soapy water from the sponge he’s holding.
The cold tingle of the water makes her laugh lightly.
"Good. A sense of humor is the thing to have, but I am sorry." He offers her a clean rag.
"That's all right! I'm sure I'll dry before I get back."
"Back where?"
"Subtle, boy," Harry comments.
"I live at the hospice, the one near the Star Market, in the staff housing."
Danny smiles broadly. "The freckles on his forehead seem to dance when he smiles," Kathleen observes to herself.
"Would the nuns be upset if I were to drop by some day?"
"That would depend on your intentions."
"Better than they were when I went to Saint Edward's."
He grins again, and Kathleen is struck by the sparkle in his eyes. She waves as she walks away.
"That's a nice girl, Danny." Harry remarks as Kathleen leaves. “Not a bad looker either.”
"That's for sure." Danny turns back to the car, but his mind is following Kathleen down the street.




Words of Praise for Widow’s Walk

“Here is a story whose breadth of vision is exceeded only by the depth of its characters.” (Jon Tuttle, author, The Trustus Plays)

“This story includes the passions of everyday life that will touch you in a special way.” (Abe F. March, author, To Beirut and Back, They Plotted Revenge Against America, and Journey Into The Past)

“Written in the present tense, Widow's Walk achieves the difficult balance of urgency and character-driven action possible with this technique. With deft humor and unexpected turns, universal dilemmas and unique perspectives, I believe Widow's Walk captures all the elements of great fiction.” (Jen Knox, author, Musical Chairs


An excerpt from Memoirs From the Asylum

Arthur and I are pacing up and down the dayroom. That way the aides don’t notice. As long as we look agitated, they don’t care about our conversations. They figure we must be ourselves: the simply crazy. If we were to sit down on the bilious green Naugahyde and chrome chairs and couches that have long since deteriorated to junkyard quality and talk like normal people, then they’d get pissed off. They count on us to be psycho, to appear nuts. It’s like the cops and the criminals. The criminals might not want the cops around, but the cops need the crooks so they have jobs. And, if the cops disappeared then everyone could commit the same criminal acts so there’d be no payoff for being a crook. So, bottom line, the staff needs us to keep getting their paychecks, and we need them to keep getting our rubber-rooms, straightjackets, and butts full of Valium.
But, the numbers are changing. The psycho drugs have reduced the size of all the hospitals. The staffs have shrunk; now they’re resisting every discharge. No normality here! Nobody should get out. That’s the rule.
So we are pacing and discussing the alleged newest member of our very nonselective club. Of course, it is all rumor and conjecture. The rolling TV never plays the news; it’s considered too upsetting.
Newspapers and magazines only make an appearance when an infrequent visitor happens to bring them, which is always well after they’re better suited for wrapping fish. Visitors are few and far between. We who have survived the medication boom and still live on the wards have few family members interested in us. The aides and nurses do bring gossipy magazines that they share with each other and then leave around for us. We always know the latest tittle-tattle from three weeks ago. We can always tell that our bleached out castaway clothing isn’t the latest from Paris.
“Maybe. But, then what’s to stop them from frying every nut case,” I pause for effect, “including us?”
“Would you do something like that?”
“No.”
“Well, neither would I.”
“Of course not, but you did attack those people.”
He giggles nervously. “God told me to.”
“I know, but maybe God told him.”
He raises his voice, always a foolish thing to do, but theology is always a hot button in the day room. “God would never tell him that – not something like that!”
One of the aides looks up at us. I catch her out of the corner of my eye, the one that I always keep directed at the nurses’ station.
“Sshhh,” I hiss at him. But he is way too far-gone. God’s prophet is on the pulpit, and nothing else matters. It only takes a minute before they drug him, wrap him, and carry him off to restraints.
They might decide I should get it, too, that I have been provoking him, that I might get others started – that I might be the “King of the Crazies” – and they talk about our paranoia. I walk away as fast as I can.
Too late! They have grabbed me and wrestled my ass to the floor. I’m not resisting. There would be no point. They still rough me up. One aide, this big hulk of an idiot, a sadist too afraid to take on anyone who can fight back, smacks me in the face – no reason, just his pleasure. My nose starts to bleed. They hold me down so that I’m coughing and choking on my own damn blood. One of the nurses brings the syringe. The big V to the rescue.
I wake up the next day on the medical ward. There is a hole in my throat where they inserted a tracheotomy tube. The bastard has nearly killed me. God, is my throat sore. I get to suck on ice chips and suffer. The bastard got to go home for his dinner.
A day later I am back on the ward. One of the women patients sidles over to me. “We heard they had to give you shock treatments,” she hisses.
“No,” I croak back pointing at my throat.
“I thought your brains were up here,” she says pointing to her head.
I try to laugh and then think better of it. I pat my ass. “No, down here,” I tell her.
She is still cackling as one of the nurses came out from behind their counter with the medication tray. My pills are different. I look at them and then at her. “Take your meds,” she commands firmly.
“They aren’t right.”
“The doctor changed them.”
“Why?”
“Ask him.”
“Come on, at least tell me why,” I plead, afraid of the side effects.
“We want to make sure that you behave yourself. No more incidents like yesterday.
I want to cry, but I just nod. I try to hold some of the pills in my cheek to spit them out once she has gone, but she checks my mouth and makes me take a second cup of the horrible juice they use. It tastes like a combination of the bug-juice they serve at summer camp and some powdered fruit drink straight from the army, and filled with saltpeter.
“Be a good boy,” she says as she walks away. I feel like I’m a dog being patted absentmindedly on the head by a totally indifferent and unfeeling clerk in a department store. “You really shouldn’t have your dog in here, mister; but keep him under control and we won’t shoot you full of meds.”
“Yes, ma’am; yes, ma’am, three bags full.”
No matter how fucked your head, you’ve got to hate the drooling and the shuffling. I try to control the tics and that damned unending pill rolling. I try, but I fail – failure is in the chemistry.



To learn more about Widow’s Walk visit the video at:

http://vidego.multicastmedia.com/player.php?p=wbgzb2yk

To order Widow’s Walk go to:

http://tiny.cc/WidowsWalkAmazon

or

http://tiny.cc/BuyWidowsWalk

To learn more about Memoirs From the Asylum watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGyl0JMTEJ4

To order Memoirs From the Asylum go to:


http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Asylum-Kenneth-Weene/dp/0984421955/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273347148&sr=1-1

To learn more about the publisher, All Things That Matter Press, go to

http://www.allthingsthatmatterpress.com/

WIDOW'S WALK RELEASE

JUST RELEASED BY ATTMPRESS, WIDOW'S WALK BY KENNETH WEENE!

About Widow's Walk

Widow’s Walk is a story of faith and its effects on already flawed characters. Set in Boston in the 1980s, it is the story of Mary Flanagan and her children, Sean and Kathleen. Mary’s husband, Sean, Sr., died at the wheel of his M.T.A. bus. Her son, Sean, Jr. is a quadriplegic, injured on his way to a brothel in Vietnam; Kathleen, divorced and unable to have children, works and lives at a hospice that primarily serves AIDS patients; there she lives a mechanistically faithful life, but one devoid of belief. This unhappy family structure is erected on the bedrock stoicism of Mary’s Irish Catholicism. It is that faith which is tested, changed, and strangely reaffirmed over the course of the tale.



Two events upend Mary’s world. The first is her friend, Lois’s, move to Florida . The second is Sean’s decision to seek rehabilitation in a center in Minnesota – a decision initiated by Jem, a home health aide whose own life reflects a faith of care and service.



Mary finds herself looking for new meaning and direction in her life. In the process she meets two unexpected people, Arnie Berger, a college professor, an agnostic or perhaps deistic Jew, and love interest, and Pat Michaels, a minister, whose view of a joyous faith is much at odds with Mary’s rigid theology. She also moves into a housing share and becomes friends with Amelia Callaghan, the misanthropic house owner.



Sean’s life, too, is dramatically changed because he falls in love with and marries one of the aides at the rehab center. He returns to Boston married, employed and expecting their first child.



Given the remarkable changes in her mother’s and brother’s lives and influenced by Max, one of her dying patients and a man whose story and faith are powerful and unique, Kathleen also seeks love. She meets Danny, a young man tied to his overprotective mother and unable to deal with his own feelings of inadequacy.



Sadly, Kathleen and Danny’s relationship ends in disaster, rape, and abuse. Danny flees. In her own way, Kathleen does too; she becomes catatonic and dependant.



Mary unable to come to terms with her sense of guilt and responsibility towards her daughter – is powerless to keep those feelings from coming between her and Arnie.

In the end, Mary can not live with her unhappiness and dies of “the pain of her soul,” a diagnosis provided by the caregiver, Jem, who had originally encouraged Sean to make his momentous move. Mary’s death creates a strange psychological space in which Kathleen takes on her mother’s place in the world.



About the Author:

Kenneth married his wife Roz in 1968 and went to U. of Iowa for a year, from which Roz graduated. He transferred to the Institute of Advance Psychological Studies at Adelphi University , Long Island , NY . He completed a PhD in psychology and worked as a psychologist from 1970 until 2001. During part of that time he worked for The Counseling Service of The Long Island Council of Churches. Despite his great interest in religion, he did not seek ordination until 2002. Why? Because he had been raised Jewish and only started really thinking about his own faith as an adult. He saw no advantage in upsetting his parents by seeking ministerial ordination.



He started writing, primarily poetry, in the 1980s. Regarding Widow's Walk, Weene says, "Stepping away from full-time work was the best decision I ever made. Writing this story has given me tremendous personal satisfaction, and it has shown me an avenue for expression I will always treasure."

KEN WILL SOON BE ON A BLOG TOUR.


Themes, Topics and Perspective Audience for Widow's Walk

There are a number of the themes and topics included in Widow's Walk. These include:

* Role of faith in life
* Possibility of love
* Meaning of life and of love



If you would be interested in interviewing Kenneth during his tour, or highlight him or his book in some other way including a review, feel free to contact – virtualblogtours@yahoo.com.