GEMINI'S BLOOD

WE ARE PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE SECOND BOOK BY MICHAEL BURNS!
NOW AT http://allthingsthatmatterpress.com

Gemini's Blood
By Michael Burns

Jack Scanlon, at the threshold of his sixtieth year, finds himself in an uncomfortable recliner in the corridor of Day Surgery at a local hospital, hooked up to an IV tube. He is receiving three units of blood, a process that will take the better part of eight hours. He has all but convinced himself that he is a terminal case, a victim of colon cancer. If a drowning man is capable of witnessing the sum of his entire life before his eyes at the instant before he goes under for the last time, Jack Scanlon has the luxury of witnessing his at his leisure, and in chronological order. His meditations focus largely on his early childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, which covers roughly the years 1944 through 1961, with a few brief detours into more recent history, a history that involves the deaths of his younger half-brother Keith, and his mother, as well as a short description of his own recent medical struggles.

About the author:
Michael Burns was born in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. His family moved to New Hampshire in 1950 where he attended high school, graduating in 1957. He deferred entrance to college to serve in the U.S. Navy for four years, seeing duty in Southeast Asia in the early days of the Vietnam War. After mustering out of the Navy, Burns returned to New Hampshire where he met and married his wife, and matriculated at the University of New Hampshire.

Encouraged by his freshman English teacher, Burns first became interested in writing fiction in 1963. He continued writing after being inspired by the late Thomas Williams, National Book Award-winning author and mentor to many young writers, among them John Irving.

In 1971, Burns joined the faculty of St. Paul's School, a college preparatory boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire. He retired from that school in 2004 after 33 years of teaching chemistry, life science, and creative writing. At present, Burns is living with his wife in rural New Hampshire where he is at work on his fourth novel. Gemini, his first novel, was published by Poncha Press in 2001, and will be republished by All Things That Matter Press in 2009. Where You Are, Burns' second novel, was published by All Things That Matter Press in 2009.

Gemini's Blood