Monday, November 21, 2005

A Serious Program Graduate.....

This is a great email I received from a reader - and one helluva character. Thought those of you who "got with the Program" might appreciate hearing from a tried and tested Program graduate. I left out his name and telling details to protect the innocent...
___

Mr. Hurwitz:

First, KILL CLAUSE and now THE PROGRAM. KC got my attention, TP has me stunned.

An avid and voracious reader, I download dozens of e-books every few months. I will buy the hardcover of THE PROGRAM, as I plan to reread it, something I’ve only done one or two times in my 64 years.

Graduating class of 1960, I lived among the cultists for more than a decade, in my travels to Topanga, Berzerkly, and Eselen, the Pamirs and Ibiza, Southwest deserts and my hometown of L.A.

….sitting in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel on a bus-stop bench, giggling at the traffic, the ‘fact’ of my just having lived 1.5 yrs. in the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan…hitching barefoot to the Baleares…now in a three-piece, selling air freight…soon to be lobster-fishing at 3:00 a.m. off San Nicholas Island, So. Cal. with Naval artillery screaming o’head, clods of the island raining on me…to home here in Idaho with my eight and ten-year-old kids, the three of us….

I'm sure that the statutes have run out on any of the chapters of my reality that I may have misplaced...let's see...1960 thru 1967...haven't a clue....something about Zomeworks in New Mexico...Haight-Ashbury when SuperSpade flew off the bridge...walking into the Psychedelicatessen in NYC, plunking down $$ and wordlessly walking out 30 seconds later with a K of something or other...standing in the middle of Connaught Circus, downtown New Delhi, with a used one-way airline ticket and $200, mumbling 'man...really f****d up bigtime, here...'...breakfast with the King of Chitral a few months and miles later...as my grandfather said "peregrinations in odd places".

Your work rings true and solid. Stark terror in the cults…Lock and Load, yes…common-sensors cannot comprehend, God bless us, everyone….

Must let the 'gotcha dust' settle from your last ride. I'm still seeing events from Troubleshooter out of the corner of my mind as I drive down the street.... Your characters really live.

Thanks for putting it out there. Thanks for the Rackleys…

1 comment:

Jen Jordan said...

Wow, it's got to be fantastic hearing that your work rings so true! The fact that you do so much research really helped this reader forget that she was reading whilst turning the pages at blinding speeds.

And it helped this reader refer to herself in the third person which is rather scary.