Showing results by author "Gerald Everett Jones"

In this historical essay, freelance writer Gerald Everett Jones correlates the few details known about the death of the last Greek-speaking philosopher with the religious and political revolution that overtook her. Jones explains how, centuries earlier, Egyptian priest Manetho and Greek mystic Timotheus created the cult of Sarapis at the behest of Pharaoh Ptolemy Soter.

Call Richmond went missing. Twenty years later he showed up on a family member's doorstep. He was homeless, broken, and suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. For the next 14 years, his sister Rebecca took on the struggle to restore him as they faced the dark traumas and painful memories of their past. The Light in His Soul: Lessons from My Brother's Schizophrenia is her intimate memoir of helping Call as she learns that his extraordinary gifts are helping heal her and her family. Both Call and Rebecca bring light to the dark shadows of their past. 

In 1892 Paris, Julius Stewart painted The Baptism, a Vanderbilt family scene that contains an embarrassing secret. In the present day, art historian Grace Atwood becomes obsessed with the painting and its hidden clues for reasons that have more to do with her personal ghosts. Either her doting husband is trying to make her think she's crazy, or she really is in the early stages of dementia.

Christmas Karma is author Gerald Everett Jones' homage to Anne Tyler, whom he regards as his literary mother. It's about the travails of a dysfunctional family around the holidays, narrated by an angel who has a wicked sense of humor. Main character Willa Nawicki is bewildered by a series of curious karmic events that literally ring her doorbell during the frantic season, awakening years-old resentments and stimulating ever-more-intense personal confrontations.

In 1945, Milton Reynolds introduced the ballpoint to the United States and triggered the biggest single-day shopping riot in history at Gimbels in Manhattan. The Reynolds International Pen Company made $5 million in eight weeks during the first non-wartime Christmas season. Thereafter, increasing competition from established companies such as Eversharp triggered several years of the "Pen Wars".

A car jockey at a luxury hotel in Beverly Hills, youthful hacker-turned-slacker Rollo Hemphill devises a screwball scheme for making his girlfriend jealous. Through a silly but magical ruse, our hero gets everything he's ever dreamed about - except the real love of a real, live girl. My Inflatable Friend is a witty, cautionary tale about the perils of pretending to be someone you're not - and the hazards of stroking every male's most private and vulnerable part - his swelling ego.