Lost In Seattle edition by Bruce Louis Dodson Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : Lost In Seattle edition by Bruce Louis Dodson Literature Fiction eBooks 
At fifty-three William Brenner has played by the rules all this life honest, dependable and married. He's held a steady job for fifteen years; a good father making payments on a house and saving money in an IRA. After being downsized he finds himself transformed from a successful law abiding middle class American to a midlife victim of the recession. Willie experiences a rapid accumulation of loss including wife, home, vocation, daughter, a mother with Alzheimer’s and even his dog—everything but his sense of humor.
Three years of unemployment lead him into overwhelming plastic debt and a low rent neighborhood where he becomes one of many lovers to a talented braless barista who loves sex. He finds himself in a floating world of, low-pay temporary jobs, unknown ethnicities and ways of life Vietnamese, Hispanics, artists, early twenties college graduates who can’t find jobs, a Buddhist nun, one bank robber and two lawyers. A fox-hole intimacy creates new friends and insight to another world.
This is a story of survival, love, lust, loss and luck interspaced with a narrated account of his mother who escapes from a California care facility into the arms of a drug dealing motorcycle gang.
Lost In Seattle edition by Bruce Louis Dodson Literature Fiction eBooks
There are so many new books out there, that it’s hard to keep up, and harder still to choose from the list of new publications. But in the last few years, I’ve been reading quite a lot. What I’ve been looking for, is a story that relates to the challenges and the values of society today. In this book, which I discovered more or less by accident, I found just that. The hero has earned a good place in society, and enjoys the famous benefits that are offered to those who work in high tech. But while still at the height of his prowess, he finds himself dispossessed because of the cynical use of manpower in these top level companies, and has to start afresh. The book is well written and entertaining. I recommend it. It keeps the reader’s interest, and challenges us with ethical questions. It’s more than just a story. It offers a very serious point of view on the nature of today’s society. For those who wish to know more about the plot and the characters, I recommend the review by Tahlia Newland.Product details
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Lost In Seattle edition by Bruce Louis Dodson Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
Lost In Seattle revolves around Willie, an early-fifties Seattleite struggling to keep his spirits up after losing his job and trying to survive on the modest wages of temp labor jobs throughout Seattle. Though perhaps a depressing theme at a glance, the story is anything but. The main character is a likeable one, and his friends, co-workers and family add elements of humor and everyman relatability to the story. There are intriguing subplots involving a serial murderer, an armed robbery, Buddhist monks, and a (much) younger love interest for Willie.
The story is concisely and intelligently written, with enough subtle humor, wit and poignancy to keep the reader stimulated throughout. Recommended to any and all, from the casual adult reader to the novel connoisseur.
Anyone interested in additional writing, poetry and other works by Bruce Dodson should visit
brucelouisdodson.blogspot.com/
or
brucelouisdodson.wordpress.com
I have an immense amount of respect for authors who can write about ordinary people's ordinary lives and make them interesting. Only good writers can do this, and this author is one such person.
Lost in Seattle is about Willie, a man in his fifties who lost his engineering job and suddenly found himself on one of the long term unemployed, trying to get by on temporary work at the lower end of the employment market. The book gives a vivid portrayal of what life in the USA is like for those who drift from one temp job to another, or who work in unskilled, lowly paid jobs. The jobs are boring, tiring and sometimes dangerous, and the companies running them don't care about the workers. News headlines provide a depressing economic and political commentary that underscores the reality of Willie's life and provokes impassioned comment from his coworkers. We are left in no doubt about the feelings of alienation felt by these underpaid workers. The politicians have left them in the lurch. The country belongs to the rich. No one cares about the workers. The only way Willie can get by is by putting everything on credit card, and the more debt he accrues, the more credit cards he is offered. The whole system is stuffed.
The book isn't as depressing as this makes it sound, however, because Willie finds friends among people who would never have rubbed shoulders with had he not been unemployed - a group of Vietnamese and an African American. There is also a love interest.
We meet Willie several years after he has divorced his wife as he takes on yet another temp job at hideously low wages. The beginning of the book grabbed me with a horrific accident in a bakery. A man loses his hand. Willie helps him and they become friends. George is just one of the threads that weaves together to make this story. Lawyers take the stage and offer Willie a job if he'll give a statement that will make it look like George was high on drugs and therefore culpable for the accident. The book shows us how difficult it is to make the moral decision when you're owing 40,000 on credit card. George continues to raise moral issues for Willie and adds a lot of tension of the 'will he get caught' variety.
Then there is Alice, the sculptor, who adds a bit of spice to Willie's life, and Mary, Willie's Buddhist nun daughter who returns from 3 years in a monastery. She and her teacher, Iron Ma, provide a light metaphysical thread and the question of whether or not Willie might get back together with his wife is another story strand.
This books raises your awareness of and empathy for those who bear the brunt of the economic collapse in the USA , but it doesn't have one strong story arc, rather several strands of fairly ordinary happenings that together keep you reading.
This isn't a book for those who demand a lot of action or a gripping plot. It doesn't build up to a climax, rather it just keeps trucking along, as life does. Nevertheless, the author manages to write enough tension into fairly ordinary scenes to keep you reading, and he concludes if well by tying up the various threads, but suggesting that even this positive ending may not stay that way for long.
The book is well crafted and edited. There's nothing extraneous in it. The copy editing is good and the prose is well written. The characters are all strong and I cared about Willie from early in the book, though I would have liked to have seen more obvious development in his character. I had a sense that he had come to accept his situation and be happier for it, but I think that could have been made more obvious.
It's a good book for those who enjoy contemporary fiction with a social conscience. I give it 4 stars and a place on the Awesome Indies list.
I received it free in return for an honest review.
Lost in Seattle pulls you in with its simplicity. It's about a 53-year-old man who gets downsized and struggles to get back on his feet by doing odd jobs. But odder than his jobs are his new friends - Vietnamese assembly-line workers, a bank robber and a hot artist. While Willie gets a hang of his new life, he weaves a story about the whereabouts of his ageing mother, who has escaped from her care facility. Considering the topic, the book could've been depressing and serious but instead, I was amused by its light tone and subtle humour.
The story connects with anyone who's ever had to face the brunt of the recession or had to deal with sudden loss. It's about everyday people, just like you and me. Reading it felt like I was sitting down with a group of friends over coffee.
This story needs to be told. Social mobility works in both directions. People who are going down think they are all alone. They usually are dropped by their so called friends and sink into deeper isolation. It is rarely publicly acknowledged that a huge number of people are laboring at jobs below their abilities. I wanted to shout and cheer as I read it. There is also a camaraderie among people doing awful jobs that is unknown in the white collar world. The descriptions of bosses and flaky co-workers is right on. I highly recommend this book.
There are so many new books out there, that it’s hard to keep up, and harder still to choose from the list of new publications. But in the last few years, I’ve been reading quite a lot. What I’ve been looking for, is a story that relates to the challenges and the values of society today. In this book, which I discovered more or less by accident, I found just that. The hero has earned a good place in society, and enjoys the famous benefits that are offered to those who work in high tech. But while still at the height of his prowess, he finds himself dispossessed because of the cynical use of manpower in these top level companies, and has to start afresh. The book is well written and entertaining. I recommend it. It keeps the reader’s interest, and challenges us with ethical questions. It’s more than just a story. It offers a very serious point of view on the nature of today’s society. For those who wish to know more about the plot and the characters, I recommend the review by Tahlia Newland.
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