Online Review

I'm not sure quite why but more people than ever before are reading A Half Life Of One online. That's good. But what's even better is when they take the trouble to review the book. Here's one just in from a guy called Ken Crowe:

Bill,

I sailed through your novel with pleasure, the pleasure of reading a well-written, carefully plotted story with a logical, intelligent ending.

In my notes to myself about A HALF LIFE OF ONE, I wrote: This was a well-written, smoothly moving, stinging portrait of a seeming everyman, who is decent and willing to work hard, but within himself lurks a self-centered selfishness that enables him to be startlingly cruel. At the same time, there is an element of guilt and the fear of being caught that is his sentence to a torturous life.

Your ending was as unforgettable as Edgar Allan Poe’s THE CAST OF AMONTILLADO.

Thank God for the internet so that works like yours can be made available to readers.

All the best,

Ken Crowe

This struck me as an interesting take on the book so I asked Mr Crowe to tell me a little more about himself. Here's his biography:

Kenneth C. Crowe’s latest book is the free on-line novel, THE DREAM DANCER, which may be accessed at www.kennethccrowe.com.

Crowe was a labor reporter at Newsday and New York Newsday from 1976 to 1999. He is the author of COLLISION/HOW THE RANK AND FILE TOOK BACK THE TEAMSTERS. Published by Scribner's in 1993, COLLISION tells the story of the Teamsters' rank and file reform movement, culminating in the election of Ron Carey as president of the union.

Crowe won an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship in 1974 to study foreign investment in the United States. In 1978, Doubleday published AMERICA FOR SALE, Crowe's book on foreign investment in the United States.

Crowe was a member of the Newsday investigative team whose work won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal.

Definitely an interesting guy. Certainly enough to make me want to pop over and take a look at his online novel. Oh, and Scribner's were Scott Fitzgerald's publishers too, a connection which sent a little shiver down my spine.

Amazing who you meet on the web, isn't it? So much better than being stuck alone at home in the Pundyhouse without any kind of access to the outside world.