Manyebook

The Pains of April

My daughter took me out to the cemetery later that day. It was wet and cold, but I wanted to go. We walked side by side from the road until we reached the place where my wife is buried. Her headstone is simple and clean. I have stood for hours on end and smoked cigarettes in the rain while the earth around her casket pressed against her sides. I have sat drunk in this field of dead men and tried to rub her soul into my skin.Sometimes I wonder whether I was born to sit in a graveyard. I am a person who needs a grave to visit. At times I believe it wouldn't matter which one I picked. I would get drunk and shake my head back and forth over anyone who has ever died. Death is the cleanser. There are no more visible mistakes. No matter what terrible things you've done, everyone is allowed to die.Frank Turner Hollon, with The Pains of April, his first published novel, brings to us the recollections of an old man in a rest home on the Gulf Coast. We feel the frustrations, lessons, and fears of a lifetime remembered, and typed as this man looks for himself behind the veil of his memories and dreams. "Even at the end of April there are so many things to learn."This short novel brings us the recollections of an old man in a rest home on the Gulf Coast. We feel the frustrations, lessons, and fears of a lifetime remembered, as this man looks for himself behind the veil of his memories and dreams. "Even at the end of April, there are so many things to learn."

  • Format
  • paperback
  • Pages
  • 114
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9781931561143
  • Release date
  • 2002