Litany: A Novel

Wandering in the cultural upheaval of 1968 in Chicago, a wise-cracking street girl (Zak) meets an itinerant, brilliant and slightly mad old gardener, Rose, through Sophie, a middle-aged librarian who lives by the rules– conservative even in her one major break, when she fell in love with a woman. The real and potential losses in all their lives have made them edgy. Sparks begin to fly, fanned by clashing aesthetics, defenses, and denial into a conflagration of misunderstanding that births an awkward, tentative and pragmatic partnership. Society, money and their perceived needs threaten the tentative alliance. With the help of neighbor Stan, Zak’s old protector Suzee, and the misfits at St. Martin’s soup kitchen, they must decide which of the few bad choices each has is truly damaging and which might be vaguely beneficial Searching for some little success in a world that doesn’t wish them any, they are unaware of how their pasts might make them embrace the changes embodied at the Democratic National Convention protests. Chicago is a main character, a most unlikely setting for the social upheaval that would define the next few generations. The Convention and all it entails is the moving force.