Beggarman, Thief: Righting our Wrongs in Small-Town America (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780985508364)

As an accountant in a small West Texas town, I spend my days studying the bank statements and tax returns of other people's businesses. I classify, summarize, and display their financial transactions in some meaningful format. I love creating order out of chaos. I'm middle-aged and twice married--with the second blessed from heaven. Four grown children, their children, two bobbing tails of barking energy, and one sly cat round out my cache of treasure. Over the years, I have owned and operated two boutique retail stores, several service businesses. one ranch, and one restaurant. I have been prosperous and poor, with wild fluctuations in between. At present, being neither rich nor destitute, I consider my status as deeply entrenched in middle class--a term bandied about by politicians and economists. In an effort to restore my youth, I purchased an old sofa on two wheels. For the past ten years. Since that initial existential groping, I have occasionally strapped sacks of clothes, maps, and a compass that doesn't seem to work onto the back cushion. After kissing my wife. I set out for adventure and story. Usually, after only a week or so, I realize what I left behind was more important than what I set out to find and drive a day and a night hell-bent-for-leather back home. I then settle into an old and comfortable routine. I read a few books, attend a few plays, daydream of new horizons, and plan my next adventure. I kept a journal on my first excursion. It was such an exhilarating experience: rewriting the journal and incorporating the pictures that I became intoxicated to the point I wrote a novel. At present, with pen on fire, I have just finished my eighth book--actually swimming in untested waters by writing one for young adults. I'll win prestigious awards and be asked to speak at the local library if someone would read what I have written. If you're looking for an evening spent with colorful and mesmerizing characters, if you want to immerse yourself in a rollicking good story, enthrall yourself to the point of madness, go two days without bathing, then have I got a book for you.