The Passing of a Bear Friend
By one estimate, the average person in America has between three to five close friends. Recently, my friend Tom Porter passed away. One of my favorite characters in the novel…
VOYAGE OF LIFE
Voyage of Life is a story about a man’s Life, beginning with the period after WWII, continuing through the coming-of-age sixties, the triumphs and tragedies of manhood, and finding peace and resolution in old age. The story has unfolding mysteries around losing a father, mother, wife, son, and friends and Sean’s perseverance in Life and, in the end, reuniting with his first love.
ABOUT THE BOOK
As Sean Buchanan prepares to return to Des Moines, Iowa, to bury his ninety-year-old mother, he receives a letter from Madeline Brookhart, Maddy. She writes it is urgent they meet—she has something important to tell him. They agree to meet at the Art Center, where she is teaching a class on Robert Cole’s masterpieces. It is there that a secret is revealed that she has kept since her youth.
The story is told as MADELINE BROOKHART, MADDY, a woman from SEAN BUCHANAN’S past, describes the Robert Cole Voyage of Life paintings: Childhood, Youth, Manhood, and Old Age. The paintings are a metaphor for Sean’s Life—the verdant landscape and calm waters of childhood turn turbulent in youth, and the rocky shores of manhood open to a promising sky of old age.
