O + F

About the Book

Oliver is 35, living in Maine, and divorced with no children. He works for himself computer programming, doing a little woodworking on the side. His friends are accomplished misfits who spend too much time at Dewey´s, a waterfront pub.

Oliver has never met his father, a Japanese-American. Life is drifting along for Oliver when Francesca smiles at him in a diner and starts him on a three year voyage of self-discovery. He knows that she is the woman for him, but she is married and has two children.

Oliver becomes attracted to Jacky, one of Francesca´s friends. She asks him if he´d like to try on a pair of handcuffs, and Oliver´s life takes a new path. The relationship with Jacky opens Oliver to deeper levels of need and feeling. He realizes that he must try to find his father. The search leads to Hawaii and then to the coast of Oregon where they confront each other.

Oliver marries and has a daughter. The marriage is not bad but not good, either. He has an affair with a younger woman and realizes that if he is to have a chance at living fully he must leave his wife and daughter, leave everybody, leave town, and start over.

He tears himself away and drives to Seattle where Francesca has moved after divorcing her husband. He sees her standing familiarly with another man in front of her house, and he runs away, unnoticed. Oliver is completely alone and breaks down. He drives to the spot where he met his father and stands a step away from death and an end to his pain. The memory of his father helps him to realize that he is not able to kill himself.

Oliver returns to Seattle to begin life again on a deeply honest footing. He and Francesca can be friends, at least; he loves her no matter who she is with. As it turns out, the man with her was her brother. Oliver and Francesca are together, finally, in a lasting relationship.

The novel takes place in the border country between sex and love, between life and death, in the sweet desperate places where integrity is tested and forged.

About the Author

John Wetterau grew up in Woodstock, N.Y. He served four years in the Air Force and has a B.S. degree from the University of Hawaii. He has married twice, raised children, and worked as a cabbie, house painter, tennis club manager, and computer programmer. He writes full time in Portland, Maine.