Compared to What: A novel

by Roger Gloss

In the wake of globalization, 9/11, and preemptive war, all we can really count on is each other. Compared to What is a warm, human story of renewal, personal redemption, and love.Jonah Verhagen, in his fifties, finds himself vandalizing a Hummer H2 one evening in Riverside, California. If he hasn’t already hit bottom with this stupid act, he really doesn’t want to know what the bottom looks like. He’s lost his job as a technology professional and now works two unskilled part-time jobs, despite holding a master’s degree in physics. He lives alone in a run-down apartment. His marriage and better times spent with his wife Mary are fading memories.Angela Chang, a diminutive Chinese immigrant, owns a struggling coffeehouse on the pedestrian shopping street downtown. Her husband has run off with a young princess half Angela’s age, and multi-national coffee giant Global Café opens a new store nearby, threatening to crush her small business. Only the promise and potential of her bright young daughter Kyra keep Angela going.Marcus Weathers, former civil rights leader and twenty-year member of the U.S. Congress, is burned out and cynical. Fleeing Washington, he retires with his wife Grace to Riverside. There he starts an organization to help troubled youth, hoping to achieve a modicum of success after years of fruitless effort to improve people’s lives.Pure chance brings these three diverse individuals together. Seeds of hope gradually take root in their unlikely alliance, but the political and social landscape of the decade acts against them. Ultimately only two of them will prevail, while the other succumbs to forces beyond anyone’s control.Compared to What is both a compelling tale of the times and a story for all time.

404 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 7, 2009

About the author

Roger Gloss grew up in East Aurora, New York. He left the eastern U.S. to attend UCLA, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics. He then settled in Southern California and has lived there since with his wife Linda. Together they raised two daughters, as well as one cat and a number of small dogs. They were also privileged to live in The Netherlands for more than a year. Now retired from a 45-year career in information technology, Roger spends his time writing literary fiction, supporting progressive causes, and struggling to raise awareness of climate change and our fragile natural environment.

Although proud of his upstate New York roots, Roger considers it the highest privilege to be a Californian, and he loves the landscape of the Southwest. In his younger years he was an avid runner, logging 25,000 miles in 25 years, as well as a series of impressive finish times in the half marathon. He has also backpacked in such impressive terrain as Grand Canyon, Catalina Island, the Sierra Nevada, Havasupai Indian Reservation, Rainbow Bridge, Canyonlands National Park and the Grand Tetons. His five hiking excursions to the Swiss Alps weren’t bad either.

Roger still enjoys travel, the outdoors, an active lifestyle, and reading fiction and history. He has written two novels: Compared to What (August 2009) and Third Wind (April 2014).

Visit his website at RogerGloss.com.