One question has to be asked first concerning Neil Larkins: Why did he wait until he was in his mid-fifties to even start writing for publication? And while we're at it, let's ask another question: Why was the first thing he wrote a major novel?



To answer those questions requires some recent background and a cryptic statement. In order for Neil to write, something else -- something other than what had been happening in his life -- had to happen. No, two somethings. But once they did, he was able to write and had to -- just had to -- on a particular subject.



What that first "something" was, was the death of his dear wife, a person who through no fault of her own had been occupying every minute of his time. As the sole provider for this person (who was unable to assist in that provision) and to his only daughter for many years, Neil had little time to write. His wife then languished in a long illness. There was even less time or energy to write. One thing, though, he was given material on which to base this book and more to come.

Before we explore all of that, let's take a journey into the past, to Neil's beginning.

Neil Larkins was born in Chanute, Kansas in 1945. He grew up in Colorado, first in the small community of Johnstown in the shadow of the Rockies and then later out east on the Great Plains in the town of Eads. His contact while growing up with "small town folk" who were primarily farmers, laborers and merchants gave him an understanding of people of that sort. Such people figure strongly in his book from time to time.


After high school, higher education was not to be in Neil's future; he completed but one year of study at a junior college in Southern Colorado. It was there he met and married the girl who would eventually be the mother of his only child and the real mother of his inspiration to write. Her name was Teresa and, like the character in the book, was handicapped...crippled as she chose to put it, and that's how she was always identified.



[More to come]