FUBAR

About the Book

`FUBAR´ is the story of Thor Evensen´s ruin and recovery, of Rachel Risdahl´s fateful choice between two men, and of Rachel´s daughter Glenda growing up wiser and stronger than her mother. It´s set in the Seattle high-tech suburbs of Bellevue and Redmond, in the mid-1990s. Once Thor had been a successful engineering manager, with a wife and three children and a big new house. He loses it all within the space of three weeks: He´s downsized out of his job, his headstrong small son Thor Jr. has a fatal accident while in his care, and his bitter wife Marie sues him for divorce. Abruptly, Thor is reduced to a struggling newly-single guy, initially unemployed and staying with his parents, and then moving to a rented room. When he does find a new position, it´s a manufacturers-representative sales job for which he considers himself ill-suited. At first he feels overwhelmed and beaten. He tells his parents that his life is FUBAR (Fouled Up Beyond All Repair, in the polite version). But they refuse to let him give up on himself. He works hard to make a go of it, and his fortunes slowly improve. He even buys a small condo. While driving back from a sales trip to Spokane, he´s caught in a blizzard in Snoqualmie Pass, and forced off the road by a reckless driver into a deep snowdrift. He rents the last available room in a nearby ski lodge, and winds up sharing it — chastely — with Rachel Risdahl, R.N., after her car quits. Thor and Rachel hit it off well, go out to dinner on the following day after they´re both back in Seattle, and begin a passionate relationship. Rachel is beautiful, but has poor self-esteem. She´s very self-conscious about being half Tlingit Native American, despite her Norwegian surname. A few days later, Thor and Rachel are preparing Christmas dinner in her townhouse, when her rich and abusive ex-boyfriend Skip Eastman shows up. There´s a melee; her spunky high-school-senior daughter Glenda calls the police. They arrive. Skip flees, and is arrested on his way home, but posts bail. Three months later, while Thor is out of town on business during bad weather, Skip reappears and gets Rachel back by bribing her with a two-week trip to Hawai´i. Thor telephones Rachel from Spokane — and reaches Glenda. Glenda is outraged at her mother for going back to Skip. She pleads with Thor to keep on being her surrogate stepfather, at her school events. Thor is devastated, but tries to pick himself up and go on. He has a brief fling with his firm´s office manager, and goes out with his boss´s sexy cousin for a few weeks. Skip beats Rachel severely; she´s hospitalized. But when she gets out, she goes back to Skip and even moves in with him. Rachel gets fired from her job. Her ex-husband dies and leaves her and Glenda well off. Glenda remains living in Rachel´s townhouse, renting an extra bedroom to a classmate from Japan. Thor teams up, innocently, with the two attractive girls for most of his social life. Thor´s small daughter Tonja comes along, whenever Thor has her for visitation. Glenda is gorgeous, like her mother. Thor has an insistent and powerful undercurrent of sexual feelings for her, but scrupulously conceals them. Skip beats Rachel up yet once again, and then leaves on a two-day business trip. Rachel splits with him, packs her things, and returns to her own townhouse. Skip comes home early and discovers Rachel´s goodbye note to him, heads over there in a murderous rage, and chops through her front door with an axe. Glenda flees through an upstairs window. Rachel stays behind, calmly insisting that she can handle him. Glenda calls the police on her cellular telephone. While she´s speaking with the dispatcher, she hears several gunshots; soon after that, sirens. She seeks refuge at Thor´s place. Skip drives away at high speed, pursued by four police cars, and has a fatal rollover accident

About the Author

Chuck Hastings has worked in high-tech engineering and marketing since 1956, in CA, MN, OH, FL, OR, and WA. He began writing full-length novels in 1989, and has completed three: FUBAR (Xlibris, 2000), Taiyaku (Xlibris, 2003) and Silicon Jockey (Xlibris, 2005). They celebrate the lives, careers, misadventures, personal growth, and loves of ordinary people in the high-tech world, ranging from near-tragedy to black comedy. Chuck has six children; five work in high-tech industry. In recent years he has divided his time between Silicon Valley and metro Seattle, and has worked as a contract technical writer and VLSI architect.