Query Letter for Sojourner: “To Be What We Are, And To Become What We Are Capable Of Becoming Is The Only End Of Life.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

I’ve decided to blog this query written on 19 August 1990. Of course, I will change the credits and tinker here and there; however, other than squeezing it tighter, I like it. Having just completed a major revision of the book, cutting about 12 pages and revising sentence by sentence, I will now let it “rest,”  as they say about steaks on Top Chef. And then with fountain pen, I am a retro kind of man, I ‘ll edit it once more. Jane will compose an introduction to it and I’ll self-publish the book — three books since 2005, not bad. And then I will go on to my science fiction fantasy which is juiced with Freud and Krishnamurti — see “Covenant” under Pages to read the opening chapter which was published in a major science fiction magazine.

SOJOURNER is a completed manuscript of historical fiction. Set in California during the emigration of “coolies” from China ro work on the transcontinental railroad in the 19th century, it reflects a part of America’s ethnic history which is not commonly known; however, such a sojourn for the main character, Ah Ling, becomes more than a litany of atmosphere, event or ethnicity.

Perplexing issues of meaning, risk, change, seeing, “being” as opposed to “becoming” are the essential motifs of this novel — how does one set about to consciously change? how does one see, free of societal conditioning? does choice bring conflict and, if so, is it best to be conflict-free or choice-free? et al.

Beginning in China and ending in the mountain ranges of California, SOJOURNER explores the inner development of a young peasant farmer confronted with issues of self and significant other. As he slowly awakens to the fact that he has been asleep in life, we share his rising expectations as he examines how to be in time, how to live in the here and now, to rejoice in living, free of all internal and external authorities. Consequently the novel attempts to develop how one goes about acquiring meaning.

Interpersonal and philosophical relationships are explored within the novel. No time is spent in disquisition upon life’s problems, but they evolve from the very actions Ah Ling sets into motion. Ah’s inner shifts and slides into newer levels of awareness are depicted as well. All this is within the context of a narrative which involves two cultures, an emigration and existence as a coolie working on a railroad. SOJOURNER is based on documented events and secondary sources. The manuscript is 194 pages.

As to my own expertise and background, I . . .

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