What About Today?

About the Book

What About Today? is the story of the turmoil in Clara Austin’s soul.   When her husband, Edward, suddenly dies there is something that keeps Clara from grieving and moving on with her, and her son’s, life.   Memories of flaws in her marriage, and being raised by a dominant father, haunt her and disable her ability to recognize that she can live without them.

When Jason Bullard, a young and ambitious architect, announces his plan to build a mammoth sports/resort complex in Clara’s valley she latches onto the resulting controversy as if her very existence depended on it, thus temporarily shutting down the grieving process.

Although the story of Clara finding a way to overcome the past and accept her husband’s death is important to What About Today?, there are many other themes that add complexity and conflict to the novel.

First, there is Jason Bullard, who appears intent on bulldozing over anything in his way, but underneath his blinding ambition is a dream, a dream to build a magnificent mountain-top lodge that will blend into nature and be to the world, Jason Bullard’s creation—a thing of beauty.  When Clara and Clara’s foster-daughter, Kathy, successfully cause the resort development to be halted, he is only able to realize his dream with Clara’s help.

In addition, What About Today? is a story of PLACE, and the clash between activists and developers.   Would Mr. Bullard’s resort enhance the valley and its people, or end up destroying it? Included is the conflict caused by radical environmentalist who only seem to care about other radical environmentalists.

This novel was inspired by two things: First, the desire to build the character Clara and tell her story.  Second, to use the background of the land-use conflict, which came to me by familiarizing myself with the expansive Early Winters Resort proposal, now defunct, in the Methow valley of the Washington State Cascade Mountains.  

However, when all is read and felt at the end of the book, it truly is—Clara Austin’s story.

About the Author

With his Ph.D. degree in chemistry, Dr. Donald Kendall spent 20 years in research, but then switched to a family owned rural hardware store. During his extensive research writing, Donald fell in love with words and hoped someday to create novels. Now, he, his heart always in the Northwest, lives in retirement, with his wife, Dorothy, on the Eastern slope of the Cascade Mountains and uses his studies and past conflicts, and dreams, to write.