Some readers may wonder why ALBION ROAD is set during the early months of the year 2000. Is there a particular significance of this date for the author? One answer is that this year marks the middle age of life for the main characters. The novel uses flashbacks, memories, etc. that date back to the 1970’s and 80’s when the characters were in their twenties and thirties. To bring the story into a more present time, let’s say anywhere from 2010 or 2013 the characters would be far older and, in the case of the protagonist, Steiner, would be hard pressed to act in the way he does. At the age of 46 he has plenty of youth and determination left to him to embark on this challenge he has set for himself. Also, he as at that age when a certain amount of world weariness is just beginning to creep in with the possibility of mid-life crisis waiting just around the corner in a few short years. That is one major reason. Another reason is more historical and personal. For my own life, looking at the recent past, 2000 is the year when the world and America in particular, was recognizable to me. Since 9/11 and these nearly two decades since so many changes have occurred that it is almost frighteningly irrevocable. I think for any author writing literary fiction or some genre or other set in our present has to grapple with a very different America than what once was. No story or character can exist in a vacuum without giving some nod to the social and political implications that have transpired and are still unfolding.
My first novel, THE SACRIFICE AREA, was set in the very near future. Although not giving an established date I imagined it to be in the early 2020’s. I wrote the novel beginning in early 2004 and in the period of time it took me to write the book the intensity of what was going on played a role in how the story was shaped. Everything was darker, economically challenging, a certain powerlessness affecting some of the characters in the novel. I certainly wasn’t trying to foretell the future and I didn’t. But you end up predicting a mood.