Book Review: Goodbye Emily by Michael Murphy

With Baby Boomers reading and writing more books than ever, I wonder why Boomer Literature isn't a genre of its own. I've read many different books that call themselves Boomer Lit. Too many are nostalgic memories of youth. Some are just badly written. Others, like the book reviewed here, surprise the reader. It's well written. It treats themes that are recognizable and timely. While it is a trip down the Woodstock memory lane, Woodstock serves as a backdrop for greater themes: friendship and keeping promises.

Michael Murphy's Goodbye Emily is an homage to friendship and the Woodstock Nation. Part road trip, part buddy book, all interesting, Goodbye Emily takes the reader back in time when Sparky, the main character, decides to fulfill a promise he made to his wife and two male friends to return to Max Yasgur's farm outside Bethel, NY, where the Woodstock concert took place.

Emily was Sparky's wife, once a carefree young girl he met at Woodstock. Dead two years from cancer when the book opens, Sparky has yet to deal with his grief. He suffers from broken heart syndrome, a real problem. His doctor tells him to make a list of all the things he has to address in order to return to his normal life and leave grief and drink behind. The top item on the list is Emily, whose ashes remain in an urn on the coffee table.

Sparky realizes he has more than Emily's loss to deal with. He wonders why his former best friend Buck, another of the Woodstock boys, skipped his wife's funeral. After confronting his friend, he learns that the third member of the trio, Josh, suffers from Alzheimer's and lives in assisted living. They visit Josh. Sparky and Buck sing some songs the trio sang when they were a garage band, the Buck Naked Band. Josh, who is non-verbal, begins singing along with them. Sparky thinks that if he can reach Josh through music he can bring a semblance of quality of life back to his friend.

One thing leads to another. Before Sparky realizes what he is doing, Buck has repainted Emily's van as a peace mobile, Sparky and Buck have kidnapped Josh from his residence, and the trio is on the run from the law. All they want to do is return to Woodstock and scatter Emily's ashes.

Secondary characters, like Sparky's daughter Cloe and her boyfriend who happens to be Sparky's doctor, add color to the story. All are well drawn and jump off the page. Minor characters arrive and leave with a trail of interesting color. The plot is tight. The road trip provides a strong narrative device to bring an odd cast of characters together.

A quick, rewarding Baby Boomer novel, I encourage you to pick up the book on Amazon, where it's available as a trade paperback or on Kindle.

Interview with Michael Murphy, Author of Goodbye Emily

I had the pleasure recently of interviewing Michael Murphy, author of Scorpion Bay and the upcoming Goodbye Emily. If you don't know Michael's work, this should entice you to read him. If you already know his material, this lets you know about his next novel, which will be published in January.

Some of the readers of this blog may not know your works. Would you like to introduce yourself?

I’m a full time writer and part time urban chicken rancher in Arizona. I write mostly mystery/suspense novels and have had seven published to date. I’m really excited because Goodbye Emily, my return to Woodstock novel, will be released by Koehler Books January 20, 2012. I’d love for readers to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Goodreads.

Before we learn about your book, can you tell us the last exciting place you visited? Why did you pick these destination?

My wife and I spent several days in Puerto Vallarta after I won two free tickets. I’m sure we enjoyed the sun and the beach. I remember a short pleasure cruise to an island nearby for a sunset cookout and a trip into the mountains that took us back a century, but our main memories focus on there being a major airport mix-up regarding the free tickets, which almost kept us from returning to the US. 

Can you tell us a little about how you became a writer?

I’ve always been a writer, since elementary and high school when I wrote for the school newspapers and I majored in journalism at Arizona State University, but I didn’t get serious about writing until 1999 when I attended a seminar on establishing long term goals. At the end of the seminar each attendee was required to pick a goal that would take a year or more to complete. I picked writing a novel.

Goodbye Emily is your latest book. Why did you select the theme?

Goodbye Emily is more than a return to Woodstock novel. It’s about a man whose not only suffering through the loss of his wife, but he’s been laid off from the career he loves. Four days after my sixtieth birthday, I was laid off from a job I loved, so I took that experience and novelized it.  The novel is a lot more fun and upbeat than my personal recovery from losing my job.

Readers who might want a bit of Woodstock history and trivia can follow my Goodbye Emily blog.

I like the way you balance sorrow with humor. Do you find it difficult to write both?

Drama and comedy are based on conflict, so I find it easy to incorporate humor into my novels. I usually have at least one character who looks at life through a humorous lens, often complimenting the main character. Goodbye Emily includes some serious and tragic situations, but there’s also plenty of scenes that will make readers laugh. 

 I see the book is will be available through Amazon in print and paper. Can you tell us more about the publication schedule?

Goodbye Emily is now available for pre-order through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powell Books, Books A Million and through independent bookstores. The official release date is January 20, 2013.

You can help your fellow writers with this question. What are you doing yourself to promote Goodbye Emily?

I’ve been more aggressive promoting Emily than my other novels. It’s been my honor to have two Woodstock icons, Country Joe McDonald and Wavy Gravy provide back cover blurbs, but the novel is more than a return to Woodstock. The three main characters are baby boomers who, like those of us in this category, face the challenges of aging. They do so with optimism toward the future and humor, so my primary focus is to reach out to this age group and present a novel that will appeal to not just nostalgia, but to a sense that Goodbye Emily is about everyone who is about to or has reached the age of sixty.

You wrote Scorpion Bay a couple of years ago. Can you tell us about it?

Scorpion Bay is an action/suspense novel and a mystery with a twist at the end. It takes place in Arizona, where I live. Writing about real locations rather than a fictitious setting can create challenges, but it’s a fun read. There’s a series about these characters in me, but I haven’t started book two yet.

What do you have planned next? Any other books in the works?

I’m really excited about my first post Goodbye Emily novel.  It’s called The Yankee Club and I’m returning to my mystery/suspense roots. Inspired by The Thin Man film series, it takes place in 1933 New York City and follows a writer, Jake Donovan, and actress, Laura Wilson, who can’t seem to avoid getting involved in a mystery. There’s romance and humor and I get to use the word dame a lot. Famous people from that era drop by from time to time, Cole Porter, Babe Ruth and Dashiell Hammett are just a few.

Like The Thin Man movies, this will be a series. I’m busy writing the second in the series, All That Glitters, with Jake and Laura in Hollywood.

Thank you, Michael, for sharing your life and new novel with us. I was pleased to find we have several things in common. Both post-60. Both got laid off and used that event to begin the transformation into careers as writers. And we are both Pacific Athletic Conference grads. You from Arizona State, so you're a Pac-10er. Me from UCLA and USC, when it was PAC 8.