Author Description

Darian O'Connor is an upper class young man with aspirations as a fantasy scenery painter. When his mother is raped and murdered he seeks vengeance, but afterwards he can hardly return to his oppressive upper class life and finds himself driven to execute again while on his frequent road trips for new inspiring scenery. As he journeys into manhood he finds himself teetering on the edge of madness and righteousness, in a disturbing and gratifying place where right and wrong change with his moods.(Includes some poems and stories by characters within the story.) /THE BACK STORY: Darian leads this story about how violence begets violence in our society. He is a character that walked into my head when I was 12 and he stayed there--literally! The first picture I had of him in my mind's eye was him walking in from the side smiling/smirking, and me not yet knowing who he was or what I was going to do with him. I paid attention to him on and off for 13 years, sometimes feeling like I wished he'd chosen someone else's head to walk into, someone with the talent to write his story, but finally I was able to tell his story. I wrote a few different versions of his story over the years, then wrote the first draft of this novel in three weeks, but it would take several more edits for it to be finished. /The first draft/version of this novel was called The Scenery of North America because the character is a fantasy scenery painter but becomes a vigilante for both reasons of morality and reasons of growing insanity and moral ambiguity--the "scenery" of North American culture and society these days, I think especially in the US and Mexico. And he does travel to all three North American countries in the story. In the final version he also goes to Europe for a while so I obviously had to change the title. I played with the title, Live Boldly, Regret Nothing, and I generally don't think one should waste time with regret but should instead learn from experiences, good and bad, and from mi