Kindling and Coal
A work in progress, inspired by true events.
It is 1971 in southern Virginia. Sixteen-year-old Fletch meets his best friend’s Aunt Lori, a thirty-two-year-old artist and gun-toting divorcée. Within a year, Fletch and Lori become lovers. Risking a kidnaping charge, they run off like water from a church steeple, traveling across the country to ultimately settle at timberline in the Colorado Rockies, where they live for more than a decade in a log cabin with no running water and only a cook stove for heat.
Kindling and Coal is a bildungsroman with a bit of mystery and romance, told with multiple point-of-view narration that recounts this couple’s twelve-year journey. You will meet a colorful cast of characters, myriad pets, and experience the hardships encountered as Fletch and Lori navigate life with few resources and a desire to maintain a Bohemian lifestyle. . . and figure out who’s been following them!
The cook stove looked like this…
and provided the only heat.
“The Pumpkin” was their favorite cabin
…and has a prominent role in the story.
Books, music and movies also have a role in the novel. Details below.
Books Mentioned in Kindling and Coal
The Left Hand of Darkness. Ursula K. Le Guin
Kahlil Gibran’s The Madman (quoted)
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (quoted)
Black Elk Speaks. John Neihardt (1932, William Morrow & Company)
Bhagavad-Gita and the Kama sutra.
The Book of Lies and Magick: Liber ABA: Book 4. Aleister Crowley
Cloud-Hidden. Alan Watts
Lord of the Rings trilogy. J. R. R. Tolkien
Time enough for Love. Robert Heinlein
Romeo and Juliet. William Shakespeare
The Kandy Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby. Tom Wolfe,
The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Carlos Castañeda
Another Roadside Attraction. Tom Robbins,
Confession of a Hopi Fiend. Timothy Leary
The Fourth World of the Hopis. Harold Courlander
Psychedelic Chemistry. Michael Valentine Smith
The Book of Acid. Adam Gottlieb,
Psylocibin: Magic Mushroom Grower’s Guide. O.T. Oss
Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants.
Encyclopedia of Medicinal Herbs. Joseph Kadans
Music and Movies in Kindling and Coal
Following (in no particular order) are some of the musicians and music mentioned:
The Guess Who; Pink Floyd; Moody Blues; Joe Walsh; Charlie Parker; Duke Ellington; Ella Fitzgerald; Doobie Brothers; Meat Loaf; The Beatles; Led Zeppelin; Janis Joplin; Grace Slick; Chrissie Hynde;
Two of the characters are movie buffs! Some of the titles mentioned in the novel include:
Lonely Are the Brave; The Great Escape; Yuma; The Big Chill; Billy Jack; Notorious; Illicit; The Unfaithful; Winchester ‘73; Superman ll; The Rocky Horror Picture Show