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Juggling Broken Glass by Michael W. Clark, Ph.D. A literary novel about success and failure in the late 20th Century Midwestern U.S.A. of 95,600 words in 340 pages. Copyright 2007
Summary:
Not all Baby Boomers thrived in the Post WWI Middle America upwardly mobile euphoria. High expectations generate excessively large amounts of disappointment when reality sets in and leave expectations unfulfilled. The American Drug problem can be directly linked to America becoming a Superpower. There are no superhuman Americans, most people are just normal folks, doing normal disappointing, everyday grind-type of things. The pain from this continual disappointment is additive, it builds up and any sane person would want to avoid such pain, thus enters sex, drugs and rock & roll, that much is clear. The Johnson’s were a white lower middle class family and high achievers in disappointment from the American dream. They were thus accomplished at pain avoidance behaviors. Avoidance of reality had become their way of life. Samuel Johnson, even at nine years old, hated this family accomplishment. He hated the life they lead and the continuous avoiding of the obvious. So Samuel made a simple plan; he would get the best education he could and then get the hell out of Ohio. Thinking yourself out of disappointment wasn’t a strategy the Johnson’s had ever thought of. It was too much work. Samuel used “working hard” to keep the pain of disappointment away. Work was his pain avoidance behavior. Samuel does succeed in his plan but at a great cost. Self-exile being one of those costs. Confronting his emotions was like juggling broken glass, it cut deeply and left scars. But is success in life as simple as having fewer scars then the other people? No, it’s how you over come adversity. The death of Mother Johnson presents a major obstacle to conquer. The Johnson’s sent for Samuel to deal with this major obstacle. Because it was his family, he does. Maybe it is a definition of his success and what else could he do?
Since this is the T.V. generation and now the up and coming Web-episode viewer, this novel is told in the episode format. Each chapter is short and to the point, many are self contained stories. Still, those individual points accumulate to tell the overall story of Samuel Johnson’s growth into a functioning adult male.
The first section of the book occurs in the early 1990’s. Samuel is an adult, a professional, and has to deal with the events surrounding the death and burial of his Mother. Each episode in this section takes the point of view of one of the Mother’s relations. How they deal with or don’t deal with death and life are displayed.
The second section of the book spans the two decades between 1960 and 1970. Samuel was then a teen and preteen. The back story of Samuel and the development of his Way to Live are explained.
Both sections deal with the results of sex and drugs both positive and negatives. Each generation seems to stumble over them in their own way.
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