Going On

About the Book

This is an odyssey of a man moving in two directions. It starts with the reality of him on the downtown streets of Los Angels-nearly broken, stricken, and drinking to keep himself unconscious of what brought him there. One night a fellow derelict dies close by and this gives him the incentive to move on...but to where? Grief and booze having rendered him without words, he embarks on a silent journey up the coast of California.

As he travels, he dreads any remembrances of his life as it used to be in England, with the woman he loved obsessively and...lost...but how?

So, as he is "going on" whether meandering, staggering or marching, through encounters with patronizing humiliation, violence, and some unexpected friendship, his stubborn hurt mind flashes back to the past reality ("never go backwards!")

But slowly, inevitably, the going on and going back come together in an astonishing conclusion. In the wild wonderful space of Big Sur, amid the beauty of sea and rocks, he has to confront the truth of this tender, yearning love story.

About the Author

Joyce Howard starred in numerous movies including "The Gentle Sex" directed by Leslie Howard, "Mrs. Fitzherbert" and "The Night Has Eyes" with James Mason. During marriage to Basil Sydney and having three children, she wrote a play "Broken Silence" for B.B.C. TV. Macmillans, London, published "A Private View" and "Two Persons Singular" Spanish Edition, Book of the Year for publisher

In California she compiled and edited "Letters from Henry Miller to Hoki Tokuda Miller" American, German, English, Italian, Turkish, and iUniverse editions.

Quote from the Times Literary Supplement: "Joyce Howards great virtue is compassion. Wherever she looks she penetrates ugly exteriors in search of something to understand and love." This certainly applies to her new novel "Going On".