Waiting For The Cool Kind Of Crazy
M.D. Moore
Black Rose Writing, Jan 29 2015, $17.95
www.blackrosewriting.com
ISBN: 9781612964706
The police tazes Harmon Burke; who thinks how
pathetic that his last meal for defending his bipolar paranoid schizophrenic
mother Cece before lockup is peanut butter. Still he faces Washington State three-strikes
you’re out law for battering the next door neighbors while Cece will return to
Rainier Psychiatric Treatment Center.
Harmon explains to the cops that the neighbors used a bat while fighting
with his mom. Eddy the Port Defiance
officer owes fortyish Harmon a favor from years ago. He persuades the other party to drop their
complaint; Eddy frees Harmon with a warning: no more get out of jail cards.
At his antiques restorer shop, Harmon waits for a
potential renter of his vacant next door property when a fire inspector
arrives. Recognizing Reich as nasty
classmate Shorty; Harmon quickly realizes he has not changed in stature or personality. Shorty finds violations and includes a fine
that will either close the shop or delay Harmon’s needed cancer treatment until
it is too late. He admonishes Harmon do
right by Frank. When the potential lessee
arrives; thinking anyone but her Harmon knows why Frank sent his bulldog.
This is an intriguing drama that looks closely at
a long time loser trying to do the “right thing”. Bewildered Harmon is unsure what he can do
for his mom except chasing KGB agents; and aware that helping his new renter
angers his influential enemy who will destroy him and his family. The perceptive look at the impact of mental
illness on those closest to the person is astonishingly profound though the key
support cast (except Cece) still feels underdeveloped. This is a fabulous character study of a
drowning man.
Harriet Klausner
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