Author Spotlight: Robert Eggleton + An Excerpt from "Rarity from the Hollow" + Cover Update
Blurb
Lacy Dawn's father relives the Gulf War, her mother's teeth are rotting out, and her best friend is murdered by the meanest daddy on Earth. Life in The Hollow isn't great. But Lacy has one advantage -- she's been befriended by a semi-organic, semi-robot who works with her to cure her parents. He wants something in exchange, though. It's up to her to save the Universe.
To prepare Lacy for her coming task, she is being schooled daily via direct downloads into her brain. She doesn't mind saving the universe, but her own family and friends come first.
Will Lacy Dawn's predisposition, education, and magic be enough for her to save the Universe, Earth, and, most importantly, protect her own family?
Rarity from the Hollow is adult literary science fiction filled with tragedy, comedy and satire. It is a children's story for adults, not for the prudish, faint of heart, or easily offended.
About the author:
Robert Eggleton has served as a children's advocate in an
impoverished state for over forty years. He is best known for his investigative
reports about children’s programs, most of which were published by the West
Virginia Supreme Court where he worked from 1982 through 1997, and which also
included publication of models of serving disadvantaged and homeless children
in the community instead of in large institutions, research into foster care
drift involving children bouncing from one home to the next -- never finding a
permanent loving family, and statistical reports on the occurrence and
correlates of child abuse and delinquency.
Today, he is a recently retired children's psychotherapist
from the mental health center in Charleston, West Virginia, where he
specialized in helping victims cope with and overcome physical and sexual
abuse, and other mental health concerns. Rarity
from the Hollow is his debut novel and its release followed publication of
three short Lacy Dawn Adventures in magazines: Wingspan Quarterly, Beyond
Centauri, and Atomjack Science Fiction. Author proceeds have been donated to a
child abuse prevention program operated by Children’s Home Society of West
Virginia. http://www.childhswv.org/
Robert continues to write fiction with new adventures based on a protagonist
that is a composite character of children that he met when delivering group
therapy services. The overall theme of his stories remains victimization to
empowerment.
Purchase
links:
Author
Contacts:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13603677-rarity-from-the-hollow
https://www.facebook.com/robert.eggleton2
Awesome Indies:
“…a
hillbilly version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, only instead of
the earth being destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass, Lacy Dawn
must…The author has managed to do what I would have thought impossible; taken
serious subjects like poverty, ignorance, abuse, and written about them with
tongue-in-cheek humor without trivializing them…Eggleton sucks you into the
Hollow, dunks you in the creek, rolls you in the mud, and splays you in the sun
to dry off. Tucked between the folds of humor are some profound observations on
human nature and modern society that you have to read to appreciate…it’s a
funny book that most sci-fi fans will thoroughly enjoy.”
Readers’ Favorite:
“…Full of cranky characters and crazy situations, Rarity
From the Hollow sneaks up you and, before you know it, you are either laughing
like crazy or crying in despair, but the one thing you won’t be is unmoved… Robert
Eggleton is a brilliant writer whose work is better read on several levels. I
appreciated this story on all of them.”https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/rarity-from-the-hollow
Excerpt from Chapter 10, “One Moment, Please”
Scene Prologue: In
this scene, Lacy Dawn stands up to her abusive father for the first time.
Dwayne is a disabled Gulf War Vet who suffers from PTSD, night terrors and
anger outbursts. Her mother, Jenny, is downtrodden and weak-willed. Lacy Dawn
has just returned home from the android’s spaceship. At this point, her powers
were evident but not fully matured. She had been negotiating extraterrestrial
assistance to cure her parents of their mental disorders, but rushed home after
sensing an emergency there…:
…Three minutes later, Lacy Dawn stood on the back
porch. She was keen to hear a whisper. The yells could be heard half-way
Roundabend. She peeked through the kitchen window. Her mother was on the floor with her back
propped against the gasoline can that hid her GED study guide. Jenny’s nose bled.
“WHAT THE
HELL ………GIVES YOU THE RIGHT ………………TO THINK ……….…………….that you can THROW AWAY
…something that is MINE?” her father screamed.
Jenny
adjusted her position. So did Lacy Dawn to get a better view through the
window.
“Where’s
my SWITCH?” Dwayne left the
kitchen.
Lacy Dawn
felt for her knife.
I hope
Mommy runs for it.
Jenny
moved the gasoline can to cover a corner of her study guide that stuck up.
Dwayne had put the can in the kitchen two winters ago after he cut
firewood. At the time, snow on the path
to the shed had been deep. Jenny didn't complain about the can in the kitchen
because it turned into her best place to hide her GED book. It was convenient
and the mice stayed away because of the smell. When her GED book was hid behind
the refrigerator, it lost a corner to the nibbles. She repositioned her bra so
that everything was contained.
If
it's okay with him, I'll take it right here with my arms over my face. God,
I wish I’d worn long pants today. If he finds that book he might kill me. Maybe
that'd be better. I can’t handle anymore
anyway. Welfare would take Lacy Dawn and put her in a group home. She’d have
friends and stuff to do and decent clothes. That’s more than she’s got now. Who
am I kidding? I’ll never get my GED or learn to drive. I’d be better off dead. She'd
be better off. I ain’t no kind of decent mom anyway.
Jenny
pulled out her GED study guide. Lacy Dawn burst into the kitchen and, at the
same time, Dwayne appeared in the opposite doorway from the living room. Lacy
Dawn and Dwayne stood face to face.
“She
didn’t throw away those magazines, Dwayne. I burnt them all!” Lacy Dawn looked
him in the eyes.
I’ve
never called him Dwayne before.
“Well,
here’s my switch, little girl, and you can kiss your white ass goodbye because
it’s gonna be red in a minute.”
“I told
Grandma that you had pictures of naked little girls my age kissing old men like
you.”
“Well,
your grandma’s dead and gone now and it don’t make no difference.”
Dwayne
grinned at Jenny and resumed eye contact with Lacy Dawn. Jenny did not move.
The GED study guide was in the open. Lacy Dawn straightened her posture.
“Not that
grandma -- the other one -- your mom. I tore out a page and showed her. She
said the Devil must’ve made you have those pictures with naked girls way too
young for you to look at. She told me to burn them to help save your soul
before it was too late and you ended up in Hell.”
Dwayne raised
the switch to waist level. Lacy Dawn took a step forward.
“I was
sick of them being in the trunk under my bed anyway. I did what Grandma told me
to and now they're gone.”
“That was
my Playboy collection from high school. I bought them when I used to work at
the Amoco station before I joined the Army.”
Dwayne
lowered the switch and leaned against the door frame. Jenny sat up straighter
and slid her GED study guide back behind the gas can. Lacy Dawn maintained eye
contact.
He's
starting to lose it. Where’s my new butcher knife?
Dwayne
looked to the side and muttered something that she did not understand. He
raised the switch and then lowered it.
“But, Mom
knew I had them when I was in high school and never said nothing. Hell, those
girls were older than me back then. I bet they’re all wrinkled now -- with tits
pointing straight to the ground, false teeth, and fat asses.”
Dwayne
muttered again. Lacy Dawn maintained eye contact.
I must
have hit a nerve. He always mutters when he's thinking too hard.
“Anyway,
you’re both still getting switched even if Mom told you to do it. But, I won’t
make it too bad. She wouldn’t like it.”
He
paused. The point of the switch lowered
to the floor.
Damn. I can't think of a new name.
"Tammy,
bammy, bo mammy…" Dwayne sang. (Dwayne named all of the switched that he
used on Lacy Dawn and Jenny to discipline them.)
“If you
even touch me or Mommy with that thing, I’ll tell everybody about Tom’s garden.
(Tom is a neighbor who grows marijuana.) I’ll tell Grandma, the mailman, my
teacher after school starts, and the food stamp woman when she comes next week
for our home visit. I’ll tell Tom that I’m gonna tell the men working on the
road at the top of the hill. I’ll tell all your friends when they come by after
the harvest. And, I’ll call that judge who put you in jail for a day for drunk
driving if Grandpa will let me use the phone. I swear I’ll tell everybody.”
“Oh
shit," Dwayne said.
I knew
this day would come -- ever since she brought me those DARE to Keep Kids off
Drugs stickers to cover up the rust holes on my truck….
“Lacy
Dawn, drugs are bad. I don’t take drugs and hope you never will either.”
“Cut the
crap, Dwayne. This ain't about drugs. The only thing this is about is if you
even think about switching me or Mommy, that garden has had it -- period.”
“But
smoking pot is not the same as taking drugs,” he let go of the switch. Thirty
seconds later, Lacy Dawn picked it up and hung it in its proper place on her
parents’ bedroom wall.
“I love
you, Daddy,” she said on the way back to the kitchen.
Dwayne
went out the back door and walked to his pick-up. The truck door slammed. It
started, gravel crushed, and the muffler rumbled. He floored it up the hollow
road.
Things
will be forever different.
Lacy Dawn
sat down on a kitchen chair, did her deep breathing exercise, smelled an
underarm and said, "Yuck."
Things
will be forever the same unless DotCom can help me change them. (DotCom is
the name of the android, a recurring pun in the story.)
Jenny got
off the floor, sat on the other chair, scooted it closer beside her daughter,
put an arm around her, and kissed the side of Lacy Dawn's head.
The
muffler rumbled to nonexistence.
“Asshole,”
they screamed out the open kitchen window at the exact same time without cue.
“He used
to be a good man,” Jenny giggled and hugged…. (This phrase is an
intergenerational familial saying that Lacy Dawn turned into a chant and used
to magically elevate above the ground, and to travel back and forth between her
home and the spaceship without getting her tennis shoes muddy.)
This sounds like a very interesting read. Its almost Christmas. 😀
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