A Place Without a Postcard is my first novel, published in 2003 by iUniverse.

It’s an unusual story about a man who gets lost. That’s about as simple as it can be put. It’s about more than that, though. It’s about friendship, redemption, belief, and self-discovery.

It is part science fiction and part murder mystery and part myth. It takes place in West Texas. Not so much the western part of Texas, but the mythical West Texas where one might run into a coyote named Mercury or a man who dreams of invisibility.

I started writing it back in 1993 towards the end of college. I picked it up and put it down several times over the years. About half-way through, I decided to write it as a screenplay. I finished the script in the summer of 1995 and used it as part of my application to the graduate screenwriting program at the University of Texas.

I reworked the screenplay in grad school, but was never happy with it. It aways felt like a novel to me. When I finished grad school in 1998, I started writing the book in earnest. I finished early in 1999. The book sat for a few years while I tinkered and rewrote and edited until it reached its finished form in late 2002.

Here’s what it says on the back of the book:

Paul Reynolds, a photographer who creates fake photos for tabloid magazines, wakes up with no idea where he is or how he got there. He can’t even recall his name. A strange man lurks nearby, breathing heavily and slowly flipping through a book. Paul hears the man’s breath, but he cannot see him. He realizes with mounting panic that his eyes no longer function.

He remembers racing down a desolate West Texas highway. He remembers a cop who pulled him over for speeding. He remembers a shotgun-brandishing cook chasing him out of a diner. And he remembers a life abandoned, but he cannot put together the jigsaw puzzle that brought him where he is: blind, wanted by the law, and in the company of this invisible stranger.

In the backcountry town of Armbister, Texas, where temperatures hover around a hellish 110 degrees, Paul’s memory, intangible as a heat mirage, lies just beyond his reach, and God may be a coyote.

You can read Ronald Donaghe’s review in The Independent Gay Writer (Oct 23, 2003; Vol.1 12) here.

There are also some reviews on amazon including one from a former student who reviews me rather than my book. I come out quite favorably, and in all honesty that one is my favorite.

Currently, A Place Without a Postcard is primarily available online. You can get your local bookstore to order it for you, but your best bets for quick delivery are to:

Buy A Place Without a Postcard from Amazon

Buy A Place Without a Postcard from Barnes & Noble

Buy A Place Without a Postcard from iUniverse

I hope you’ll check it out.