I’ve been spending lots of time over the last few years on a very different sort of writing project for me: my first novel. It’s a major reason I haven’t been able to post as often or keep up as closely as I would have liked about real-food developments. Now, at long last, after many stops and starts, hopeful progress and difficult frustration, it’s finally going prime time.
With launch day finally at hand, I feel a little like I did as a reporter having his first bylined article published—proud and more than a little nervous. Like a lot of what I’ve written here, the novel is controversial—it’s about race, and it’s almost impossible to write about race these days without being seen as controversial, even if you didn’t mean to be.
Anyway, the novel’s title is Gouster Girl. To understand the meaning of the title, I’m afraid you’re going to have to read the novel. I can tell you that it’s a historical novel about an especially dark period in Chicago’s racial history that foretells many of the difficulties burdening the city today.
The good news is that Gouster Girl is available in digital formats at a very low introductory price. This link will take you to all the digital outlets where you can easily download the book (onto your Kindle, iPad, and so forth).
The book is also available in paperback at a somewhat higher price (though still quite affordable).
The story is set in the early 1960s in the Chicago neighborhood of South Shore, made famous by Michelle Obama in her recent book Becoming. She spends the opening 60 or so pages recalling her fond memories of this lakefront neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. She refers in passing to the “white flight” still ongoing when her family moved in during the 1970s.
Gouster Girl is a love story. Nerdy white Jeff Stark falls in love with cute black Valerie Davis, except that on Chicago’s South Side in 1963, that is a risky affair. At first, Valerie and Jeff help each other out of tough racial fixes—he saves her from attack at an all-white amusement park and she saves him from injury in a racial brawl at school. But as their romance becomes more serious, so do the racial dangers.
I’ve long appreciated that growing up on Chicago’s South Side was an unusual experience. People would move out from one day to the next, without telling friends or neighbors, or sometimes even their own kids till the movers showed up. The white flight from South Shore was pretty much over and done in the 1960s, when Gouster Girl takes place; an astounding two-thirds of South Shore’s 65,000 whites had fled. During the 1970s and 1980s, many middle-class blacks departed as well, leaving much of South Shore and neighboring areas to the very tough black street gangs that rule today.
A the South Side of Chicago has evolved into something of a gang-dominated killing field on the order of Honduras or El Salvador , I decided to write Gouster Girl as a way of explaining how it all began going bad.
Part of what I wanted to get across is that the travails of the South Side are much more nuanced than either liberal or conservative political dogma would have you believe. Liberals tend to see it as an outgrowth mainly of systemic racism and police brutality. Conservatives often use it to “prove” their point that gun control laws can’t work, since all the gang violence is happening despite tough Chicago gun-control laws.
If you decide to read it, please comment on Amazon. And thanks for your ongoing support.
Thank you, David, i look forward to a paperbook copy.
Congrats on your first novel!!! I hope it sells like hotcakes.
I’m so proud of you, and happy for your wonderful accomplishment, David! I can’t wait to read your first novel!
I had a funny feeling you were up to something, glad you can share it with the rest of us. If I may ask, what prompts you to spend countless hours it must have taken to accomplish this? There must be some inside personal motivation, which I can’t seem to find for myself as I’ve been meaning to create and publish a book for years. Where to start, any suggestions? It would be an all-ages/young adult type of whimsical Q & A format nonfiction, and would require an illustrator to accompany the text since I can’t draw worth beans. Kinda like milk on snow, and hope yours does well so you can keep on doing it, looking forward to the read. What’s a bean worth these days? Oh, and much as I am a critic of Gordon and others, I hope you will allow tolerance to rule the roost; controversy is an essential part of healthy eating, drinking and thinking.
Ora,
This particular book is something that’s been on my mind pretty much since my college days at the University of Chicago. As an editor of the college paper, I reported on the fledgling South Side street gangs, and pissed off a lot of students and faculty by referring to the gang members as thugs. Things haven’t changed all that much in the sense that it’s now politically incorrect to even write about black-on-black and black-on-white violence. I think I’ve mentioned here that the bullying I experienced growing up in Chicago helped prepare me for writing about the raw milk and related food wars.
As for motivation to write, you are correct about it being a huge challenge. As someone who’s written professionally for more than 40 years, I have an advantage in that I’ve had to produce….be it articles, books, speeches. No writing, no pay.
Writing a book is definitely “easier” if you have a book contract from a publisher. Nothing motivates like a deadline linked to cash. Because I decided to self publish “Gouster Girl” I didn’t have the same motivation of a deadline. But I think my professional instincts kind of took over. Plus, I’ve been talking about the book long enough with a few friends that I finally felt it was time to fish or cut bait.
If you are serious about your book, I’d encourage you to try to involve someone with some writing experience. That’s not quite as difficult as it sounds. There is a whole self-publishing “industry” that has evolved over the last decade, with online sites to match up authors with pretty much any book-related services they might want, from design to marketing to distribution. Do some Google searching. One site I’ve found to be helpful for helping locate resources is http://www.draft2digital.com. Good luck.
Thank you David, that d2d website looks like it could help me get started, and find collaborators.
You are right about black and white being a powder keg, and I’d venture to say interracial love or friendly relationships can be as harrowing as violence and intolerance. Growing up in 1950s Portugal, I can tell you that meeting a black person was a novel and intriguing rare experience, even though at the time we were involved in provincial wars in Angola and Mozambique among others. All the men would get shipped off overseas, and some developed family relationships and brought home a certain perspective and awareness that we had not been familiar with but helped bridge that gap. Today, as the world gets smaller we are all mixed together in one big pot, Black, White, Brown, Yellow, Incas, Orientals, Kurds and so on. I had never seen a red headed person until we came to America, yet somehow ended up marrying one, go figure.
Differences can be and often are the ultimate attraction, opposites attract no matter what your polarity.
As to inspiration and motivation, I agree that it just kind of happens and hits you in the head, the real secret is realizing it and writing it down before you forget then acting on it. For example, one of my first forays into the stuff I’m thinking of developing and publishing, came to me as I was driving out of Boston and coming out of the tunnel heard sirens and changed lanes to make way. I turned to my then 6 year old son in the passenger’s seat and asked him: What kind of ants take you to the hospital? He was puzzled until I pointed to the ambulance going by and told him “Ambulants” (insert rim shot.)
Not to self promote here but if you’d like a sample of my silliness, take a peek at my satire musings from 30 years ago: http://www.angelfire.com/ma/ugo never been published… bet I can make you laugh.
The FDA and CDC suggest eating your veggies!! No warning label on them either. They can be bought in every state. Zero interstate restrictions. Not one.
Greens strike again! If this is not the peak of hypocrisy !
https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/investigation-e-coli-o157h7-outbreak-linked-salad-mix-november-2019?utm_campaign=Outbreak_SaladMix_Ecoli_12092019&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua
So how is that Food Safety Modernization Act working out?
David,
Congratulations on your novel, having lived in Illinois and Florida as a child, I saw a lot more prejudice when our family moved to Fl than when I lived in Illinois, but the racism was still there, just not quite as open as in the SE. I hope to get a chance to read it. Congratulations again!!
Dr. Heckman,
I almost choked on my coffee when I read your comment,LOL!! Fairly obvious isn’t it? We have never had any E-coli,Listeria,etc. on any of our produce, ever, and guess what?? We actually use manure in our gardens too!! Manure from grass fed sheep,goats and cattle!! For a bit over twenty years we raised pastured poultry on our farm and sold them locally, jumped through a whole lot of hoops with the state do so too. The type of license( an annual state site inspection, limited wholesale processor license) we had allowed us to sell within the state only and a very limited number of chickens too. When we first started, the inspector was going over all the safety issues, I told him, you do not understand, we live in an area with a small population, if we make ONE person ill, we might as well pull our shingle and close our business, he did not seem to understand what I meant. We went through some of this same BS with selling eggs too. After all those years of doing two farmers markets a week and selling our products without ever making anyone even the slightest bit ill, we decided last year to sort of retire, FSMA had a lot to do with our decision too, just too damn many rules and regs for us small producers and the big guys did what they wanted and still do. My wife says there is no way in hell she is going to pick lettuce with rubber gloves on!!! She also said she bets the contaminated lettuce was handled by folks with rubber gloves on!!! Biologically ridiculous!!! Keep those articles coming sir, my wife and I read them regularly!!
On another note for those of you that think I am a troll, maybe this will help explain why I only had time to post occasionally. Hard to spend time on the computer when you had a farm to run that helped feed a few hundred folks. LOL!!
I guess the next logical step would be to eliminate all warm blooded animals including man. That way food is safe for who ever is left. Lol.
Mark,
The vegans seem to want to rid our planet of all the ruminants.
John, Vegans don’t wish to rid the planet of ruminants… they want human to stop eating them…
There are two subversive and alarmist ideologies that do take a dim view of ruminants… the alarmist obsession with microbes and climate change.
Ken,
Not sure how tasty those vegans would be,LOL!! But I do agree with what you are saying, and not all the pro- climate change folks feel this way, I ‘ve had some tell me it is only the CAFO situation that concerns them most, can’t disagree with that either. I usually laugh at bacterio-paranoid points of view as we are all bacterio-sapiens,LLOL!!
John, vegans want to get rid of all animals that are pets, food, in circuses, etc. They are all enslaved, doncha know?
Article from 2015:
The FDA’s New Food Safety Rules Won’t Accomplish Much
More regulation for very little return.
https://reason.com/2015/11/21/fdas-fsma-rules-are-failing-into-place/
David, not sure if you read NY Times, but this great article made me think of you check it out:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/08/nyregion/auschwitz-love-story.html?mc=contentTWdom&ad-keywords=auddevgate
Thanks for sharing Ora.
Yes, Ora, this is fascinating. There are a good number of these stories, which have gradually come out over the years. They show the power of the human spirit for compassion and survival in even the worst of times.
seeing as how this thread continues … a fascinating footnote to that love story, is : 3000 babies were born at Auschwitz. Also : after the war, the United States Military control commission prosecuted the commandant for having facilitated an artificial abortion upon one of the inmates. Rather incongruous for a ‘death camp’ n’est ce que pas?
it would be most interesting to determine if the workers and guards were getting raw milk to drink. I’ll have to ask one of my customers. She was there
Happy birthday David!! ???
Thanks, Mark. Much appreciated.
Representatives Massie & Pingree Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Allow Interstate Traffic of Raw Milk
https://massie.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/representatives-massie-pingree-introduce-bipartisan-bill-to-allow-interstate
Dr. Heckman,
Thank You for the article, I have wondered for some time now why Congress never stepped in to change that law,esp. given how many folks cry “food freedom”. Glad to hear this!! Thanks!!
Forever chemicals
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dairy-industry-milk-pfas-forever-chemicals_n_5deebaace4b07f6835b7b88f
For certain chemicals in milk is a serious problem… And so are the chemicals and toxic biological ingredients that are injected into humans and animals, bypassing natural censoring mechanisms… a serious problem.
This testimony by Dr. Meryl Nass on MA Bills H.4095 and S.2359 is a must read for those who truly desire to be an informed “Complete Patient”…
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/testimony-on-ma-bills-h-4095-and-s-2359/?fbclid=IwAR1kih7GHtFoMrlGXrqOEiwoV-apv9jbqPfQTuP4ecz_wPWt35lXwLZWrl8
In introducing herself Dr. Nass states, “I am an internal medicine physician in Ellsworth, Maine.
I graduated from MIT and the University of Mississippi School of Medicine.
I have testified to 6 Congressional committees, primarily on anthrax vaccine and Gulf War Syndrome, and the permanent injuries suffered by service-members who received military vaccines of poor quality.
I have also spoken on the issue of vaccine exemptions to legislative committees in Maine, Vermont and New Brunswick. I saw firsthand how pharmaceutical industry lobbyists patrolled legislative halls, provided talking points, schooled public servants, and helped constrain the terms of this debate.”
In deed and as she states in her first bullet point, “The elephant in the auditorium today is Pharma profits. Dare I say out loud that our children’s arms and bodies are the delivery system for transferring money from the citizens of the Commonwealth to the pharmaceutical industry?”
READ ON…
Does anyone know who is behind the HR 5410 Raw Milk Interstate commerce freedom bill?
A similar bill has been introduced in prior congresses and it has always died. This time there are 17 cosponsors and bipartisan support.
I would love to build a coalition of support for this bill and supercharge the odds of it passing.
if any one knows who is behind this bill let me know.
mark
Mark,
Dr. Heckman put this up a few days ago: https://massie.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/representatives-massie-pingree-introduce-bipartisan-bill-to-allow-interstate
Here is a fun little lifesaving tidbit
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.times-standard.com/2019/12/13/youre-more-likely-to-die-from-a-stroke-in-humboldt-county-than-the-rest-of-the-state/amp/
In California you are twice as likely to die of stroke in Humboldt County. Marin County has the lowest rate of stroke death.
Just so happens that Humboldt county forbids the sale of raw milk and Marin is a County with very high consumption of raw milk with legal sales.
Humboldt, you need to awaken to reality.
John,
I found the people back East that are behind this bill. Throwing all the weight I can behind it. Calls happening this week.
Glad to hear Mark!! Really hope this goes through this time!!
Funny, they won’t even touch raw milk vs. processed issue, as if most people don’t drink milk so it’s not relevant.
https://www.consumerreports.org/nutrition-healthy-eating/what-is-a-processed-food/?EXTKEY=NF9CNCF2&utm_source=acxiom&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20191214_nsltr_food
I found this to be hilarious: “Once you take the chicken home, the seasoning and cooking you do is considered to be a type of processing.”
So if you buy a chicken from the farm down the street, or even grow your own, once you season and cook it it becomes the same as commercial processed meat? Who knew. And I’d guess that applies to milk too, if you get raw milk and warm it up, or add some to your coffee, or make raw cheese, you are consuming processed food. Hmmm…
Ora,
you just can’t make this stuff up!!
“N.J. Senate calls off vote to eliminate religion as reason to skip child vaccines as protestors roar”
https://www.nj.com/education/2019/12/senate-calls-off-vote-to-eliminate-religion-as-reason-to-skip-child-vaccines-sponsor-says.html?fbclid=IwAR06ezYbk5ONvxzPeNWe60UTiC06GNdpB-WIo1_iFDqy4JsYIQU0IYVVSQA
They were one vote short of passing the bill so they delayed the vote
And that is supposed to be a democratic process… manipulate the vote until you get what you want…
It sounds like the passage of the bill is a forgone conclusion according to Senate President Stephen Sweeney, Democrat-Gloucester, “They can cheer all they want. This bill is going to get done. This is good public policy” the Senate president said. “There is no science to back up what they these people are saying.”
Sweeney’s statement is typical of the narrow-minded socialist tyranny the United States will ultimately be faced with under Democratic rule…
Ken,
That narrow minded point of view permeates both sides of the aisle,sorry to say!!
True, but it appears that with respect to medicine and religion, the republicans are increasingly in the forefront when it comes to defending freedom of choice. The democrats on the other hand are leaning more and more to the left and appear to be growing less tolerant in that regard…
The following commentary on “How the Left Became So Intolerant” the author states, “All too often, people who call themselves progressive liberals are at the forefront of movements to shut down debates on college campuses and to restrict freedom of speech. They are eager to cut corners, bend the Constitution, make up laws through questionable court rulings, and generally abuse the rules and the Constitution in order to get their way.
‘They establish “zero tolerance” regimes in schools where young boys are suspended for nibbling breakfast pastries into the shape of a gun. They are supposedly great haters of bigotry but sometimes speak of Christians in the most bigoted manner imaginable, as if Christians were no better than fascists.
‘American liberals are, in short, becoming increasingly illiberal. They are surrendering to the temptations of the closed mind.”
The American people might want to take heed of what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stated in a speech he made at Harvard University, “I hope that no one present will suspect me of offering my personal criticism of the Western system to present socialism as an alternative. Having experienced applied socialism in a country where the alternative has been realized, I certainly will not speak for it. The well-known Soviet mathematician Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliant book under the title Socialism; it is a profound analysis showing that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.
Here is the link to that commentary…
https://www.heritage.org/civil-society/commentary/how-the-left-became-so-intolerant
Ken,
Finally got time to read that link, I agree with some of what he says as well as disagree with some of it. I lean a little left on social issues, but lean a little right fiscally, basically a centrist, don’t really like any radicalism, no matter the origin, seems to always be extremist in nature.
How to Reduce That Risk.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/12/smarter-living/reducing-fatality-risks.html
Let’s look at a hypothetical day and see which choices have the greatest potential benefits to our well-being… “Even a quick hand wash with just water and no soap can remove 90 percent of bacteria added to the hands,” said Donald W. Schaffner, a specialist in food science and professor at Rutgers University. “Washing for 20 seconds with soap allows the removal of about 99 percent of bacteria (on average).”
“Understanding risk isn’t about paranoia, it’s about priorities”…
Hmmm, if only vaccine zealots could understand that!!! Unfortunately risk assessment is often relative and we tend to fuel it with paranoia that in turn helps to establish ones priorities… As the following article points out, use “common sense”.
Microbes are natures house cleaners, they are not the enemy, what they do is based on the environment/terrain that they are presented with. Exposure to microbes along with a nutritious diet is paramount if we wish to be healthy. That’s why kids that are raised on the farm, who drink raw milk and/or pull a carrot out of the ground, and haphazardly rub the dirt off on their pants and eat it are so healthy.
“Everyday hand washing won’t kill your good bacteria ― but overdoing it can be harmful”
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/washing-hands-too-much_n_5b7b0141e4b0a5b1febdce5f
““What the science says right now is… the normal (healthy) bacteria that live on the skin are very important [and] washing doesn’t remove them,” said Richard Gallo, founding chair at the department of dermatology at the University of California-San Diego… Gallo said that “when you are born, it looks like the bacteria enter into your skin and sort of set up permanent residence” that isn’t affected by using hand sanitizer throughout the day, taking a daily shower and washing your hands after using the restroom. But overdoing it can take a toll.”
https://cleanfoodcertified.org/the-standards/
I just had to laugh. Cause I did not want to
Scream or cry.
Professional MIT nutrition and food safety people are setting standards to rob of us our sacred word definition of the word ”Raw”
In this link you will see an absolute lack of knowledge about enzymes, bacterial Genomics, proteins or anything else in nutrition.
They are defining anything cooked at less than 212 degrees F to be RAW. They use that temp to assure safety when consuming RAW.
Gasp. What the heck!!! I wonder what raw lettuce will look like!!
Talk about mass confusion. Talk about totally usurping science or anything relevant.
This is one thing. Big food processors and nutrition experts selling more food because it’s raw!!! But it’s not raw at all. It’s far above pasteurized temps by at least 50 degrees F.
This gets a little personal. It attacks the very definition of our sacred raw milk.
In the future we will have to define what raw is.
Let me do that right now. Right here.
Raw is food that has never been heated above body temperature.
That is RAW!!!!
Cooked above 210 degrees F. That is not raw. That is cooked. Thoroughly. Even the FDA says cooking temps are above 165 F for meat temps.
What a sell out. What a confusing statement to consumers. What a lie.
Ok I said it. It’s a lie.
Study- Insertional Mutagenesis and Autoimmunity Induced Disease Caused by Human Fetal and Retroviral Residual Toxins in Vaccines
https://heinonline.org/HOL/ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals%2Filmed31&div=23&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3
C’mon Mark, tell us what you REALLY think. I agree that nearly all foods are healthier raw than cooked, with a few exceptions. We’re still waiting on the pasteurized lettuce and other veggies though, that could be the next “breakthrough” in food safety. I jest.
Congratulations on the publication of your novel, David! I just ordered a paperback copy from my local indie bookstore. I look forward to reading it!