Saturday, July 18, 2015

Book Published and I Am Back to Blogging

        You may have noticed that after I returned from Africa 7 years ago, I stopped posting blogs. I turned my writing efforts to completion of my book, Dear Jeff, which had lain dormant for many years after its commencement. I completed and published DEAR JEFF in February and it is now available at Amazon, or directly from me.
       DEAR JEFF is a series of posthumous letters to my adopted African American son, Jeff, and is a chronicle of our adventure in cross-racial adoption, growing up black and white, volunteering in the civil rights fight in rural Mississippi in 1965, and the story of an integrated family's hope, disappointment, joy and despair, ending in reconciliation. The reviews of Dear Jeff have been encouraging:
      Touching "I just finished you book, which I found a very honest, very touching, very worthy tribute to the complexities of family relationships, especially to your loving and sad and beleaguered relationship with Jeff." Judith Viorst, Author of Necessary Losses, a New York Times bestseller.
      Heart-rending "A personal, heart-rending story of struggle and anguish in the face of unconditional love...While more broadly exploring the bonds and strains of interracial adoptive parenthood,the brave, cathartic writing also offers a window to street-level racial tensions during the civil rights movement." Kirkus Reviews
       A Must Read "The book is honest and direct and causes each of us to ask questions about individuals who are placed in our own destiny--what can we do when the outcome is headed for a very different direction? Gough's tenacity is not only personally reflecting his own journey of insecurity and continuous changes as a child but also perhaps his career as a civil rights attorney defending the rights of the disadvantaged. Dear Jeff is a must read for all of us who wrestle with overcoming obstacles that we really have no role in creating." Arthur Ammann, M.D., Founder of Global Strategies.
      Amazing Read "Thank you for sharing your wonderful and amazing story with me. It was deeply touching, educational and says so much about the human capacity for compassion." Thelton Henderson 
      Elegantly and sensitively written "A fascinating story of the troubled relationship between father and adopted son. Heartbreaking and brutally honest, but elegantly and sensitively written. No sloppy sentimentality to be found anywhere." Charles Farnsworth, author and civil rights attorney.

      Enough about the book. Future blogs will feature short fiction and fantasies, or whatever whets my creative appetite.