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I've known him for years:
bf oswald began his latest
career, that of author, at the age of 72 with the creation of
his first novel, Echoes of Ellen. This novel was nominated
for both the National Book Award and the eBook equivalent, an
EPPIE. It is a story framing stories, stories about people -
a romance embracing a variety of lives and places, problems encountered
and problems solved.
A year later his second novel,
Flood: A Saga was published, which he claims is his favorite.
In this work oswald shows his ability as a careful researcher
as he constructs the life of a young man who builds his fortune
from a ten dollar land grant on the Iowa prairie into a prosperous
one thousand acre farm and helps to build a railroad, a farmers
equity, a school, and a town. Two more generations follow, the
last becomes a victims to a catastrophic flood that destroys
the farm and a family. At the end perseverance triumphs, lives
are remade, and the land becomes a haven for wildlife and people.
Five Women In Black, his third novel was actually begun
in 1982, hand written, then misplaced. The manuscript was discovered
in 2007 and finished. Is it a mystery and a romance, or a romance
embracing a mystery? It is the story of a bright young woman
who does a dumb thing; falls in love with a married man. Although
this is an oft repeated theme in literature, there is a twist
that involves the Mafia, and a Pacific island. It is a great
read that begs a sequel.
In The Footpath, bf
oswald draws on his years of experience as a therapist and has
created an unworldly widower who is stalked by a psychopathic
former patient and saved from death at the last minute by charming
and resourceful widow. If I were to pick a genre for this fast
read by bf oswald I would choose 'Suspense'.
There are other novels to
follow each very different from the others. Read on as the author
talks about his work in detail and then provides a look at the
twists and turns of his own life, experiences that wove the canvass
upon which his writing is scribed.
As yet he has not gained the
readership his immeasurable talent deserves. It maybe his eclectic
writing that does not easily find a home in any genre less broad
than 'fiction'. That is a shame because I guarantee that once
you open the cover of one of his novels you will have difficulty
putting it down.
… Johnny DeSilver, Freelance Critic
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