Erstwhile

by Louis Berry

Richard is approaching middle age and has no idea what his future holds. His wife Susan has given him the stability he sought. However, flaws in what they believed to be indestructible devotion are masked by their hectic existence in the pseudo-metropolis of Orlando, Florida. Certain that they can withstand any challenges forced upon them, the couple moves to a tiny hamlet in northwest Florida. The change is intended to eliminate the distractions that have kept them from achieving the purely ethereal love that each craves. They don't consider the physical flaws and dependencies that have wracked them both prior to knowing the other, and ignore their imperfections by clinging to tenuous associations that will never succeed.Will Richard survive a hunting trip, which ends on a two-rut road known as Hangin' Tree Road? Can Susan shake her dependency long enough to formulate a lucid conceptualization of a future with her husband? Can either survive the pasts that haunt them both?

335 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 2009

About the author

I grew up shaped by two landscapes — the Mississippi Delta and the Florida coastline — and both left their mark on everything I write.
I came to literary fiction the way most Gen X readers did: through writers who didn't explain too much, who trusted you to feel what they were describing without spelling it out. Hemingway. Faulkner. Steinbeck. McCarthy. Writers who understood that restraint and precision hit harder than volume.

That's what I aim for. Stories rooted in real Florida history, told with the kind of prose that doesn't get in its own way.

My novels range from historical true crime (The Surrency Affair) to generational conspiracy (The Everglades), from philosophical thriller (Seeking Trinity) to a father driven past every limit he thought he had (Task Force Vigilante). Madeline is the love story I always wanted to write — spare, aching, and honest.

All five are available worldwide in eight languages. Every week I publish a new chapter of The Everglades on my blog at floridaliteraryfiction.com — free to read, no sign-up required.

If you've read any of my books, I'd be genuinely grateful for a review here on Goodreads. It means more than most readers realize — it's how new readers find the work.
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