James Pumpelly

Reared by traveling evangelists, my sheltered years were a moth-swarm of questions and quandaries. Like drawn curtains against the sun, my naiveté rebuffed the dazzle of temporal joy. I feigned comprehension, for to do otherwise was to be reproached by the happiness of others - until the milieu of university curricula enlightened me. As Eudora Welty wrote, "A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within." In retrospect, I treasure the innocent years - as most do - a kind of throwback to Thoreau's life at Walden. Yet, as I write, I suspect only God and romanticists empathize with my quest, my yearning for warmth - like a meadow on a summer day. Peace. A palliative of which the world is bereft. Having eyes that see, and ears that hear (in the biblical sense), I often feel complicit in the world's duress; escaping via demiurgical expression, creating characters, places and events by the whim of fancy. Freud instructs us to hold our parents accountable for our problematic existence, Marx tells us we should point the finger at the upper class, when, in truth, we have only ourselves at fault. Blake believed if the doors of perception were cleansed, we would see everything as it is. Infinite. But truth is beyond the rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Beyond thought, even. Accordingly, I've stumbled through the fifty states, and much of Europe and Asia, gathering impressions for my narrative. To quote Melville, "This world clean fails me: still I yearn." Such hunger funds the heart, the will to live. As the journey lengthens and the destination seems never nearer, I've grown to accept that my journey IS the destination. A writer's duty, I think, is to brave possibilities. Temerity breaths life into characters. Accepting the challenge, I've been writing since the mid seventies - poetry (that window on the soul) and short stories, reflecting the uniqueness of station and local. Before college, I was homeschooled, due to my parents' constant travel. As an adult, I've called home by many names: Texas, Georgia, Florida, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Louisiana, among them. My hobbies include reading, cooking, gardening, and piano (the latter one of my college majors). Surmounting these four, is writing, making memories into more than they were; for memories are living things, conjoining the past and the future, resurrecting the dead and imagining the unborn. Two thousand years ago, Pilate asked Christ, "What is truth?" the answer being every man's quest - to which I add another Pilate excerpt: "What I have written I have written." Recent professional reviews: Review Rating: 5 Stars Reviewed By K.J. Simmill for Readers’ Favorite Melvin is dead. There's no beating around the bush with that. But what a mess he left in his wake, or rather his Aunt Martha left after a brief possession of the priest to give him the 'no punches pulled' send-off she thought he deserved. His mistress is pregnant, and his wife, Melody, has made her own withdrawal from the Rogue Sperm Bank in the hope of letting her husband's legacy live on. Melvin has a choice: his aunt is insisting he is born again, and he must quickly choose which vessel his soul should enter, the child carried by his wife, or that of his mistress. There are, of course, complications that cause even those against idle chatter to sow the seeds of gossip. Melvin was indeed reborn, and what a stir it caused. Lately, whenever I pick up a book claiming to be comedy, a brief wave of dread passes over me. Today's amusement seems often to be nothing more than a string of put-downs, and jerkish behaviour, something I would call closer to bullying than humour. I actually heaved a sigh of relief when I first started reading James Pumpelly's Twice Melvin. I don't remember the last time a book with such witty humour crossed the screen of my kindle. Only a few paragraphs in, I found myself chuckling, and the momentum continues. Refreshing wit, great banter, some ironic humour, all wrapped up in an interesting and enjoyable plot. This book certainly rekindled my faith in the genre, and restored my hope that there are still people who can be funny, without it being at someone's expense. Within Twice Melvin you'll find some great characters, deep and real with their own unique personalities and agendas. The book itself is written in alternating perspectives between the first person narrative of Melvin (later Melvin Jr.), and the third person perspective of the other characters. Whilst Melvin, for a large portion of the book, is deceased, it in no way hampers the story-telling, and James Pumpelly manages to spin a creative, humorous tale with serious aspects, romance, otherworldly meddling, and mortal gossip. A refreshing read that had me laughing aloud more than once.