The prequel novella to the new climate-fiction novel The Dying Party. The Dying Party asks: What happens when they tell us it’s too late, when we pass the tipping point of the climate change crisis and are forced to face a near future that will be increasingly hellish, and the end that will come within our lifetimes? The novel answers this with two two parallel story lines. On the one hand, we have six survivors in 2049, in a residential complex built into Newfoundland’s only mountain, Gros Morne – the last six people alive in Eastern Canada. On the other hand, we have a group of humanity’s richest and most powerful, the super-elite, trying to establish an off-Earth colony for themselves.

The novel shows in fascinating detail the complex brutality of what having to accept such a fate would mean for the social, political, and economic principles and structures that underpin human civilization; what it would look like on a global scale, in a local context, and from a variety of distinct personal perspectives.The Dying Party demonstrates that the ever-widening gap between rich and poor, the cause of so much injustice and suffering through history, will plague us on into the fateful future we now face. The thrust of the novel, however, is to illustrate the under-appreciated impact that passing the climate change tipping point will have on the human psyche – an impact as great as that of climate change on the planet, accelerating the deadly advance.

This is not fanciful speculation about the near and distant future, but rather the logical extension of the current course of humanity based on extensive research. The novel has the courage to depict the worse case scenario unflinchingly, that we may see the human consequences of unchecked climate change. It is, therefore, the cautionary tale to end all cautionary tales.

“Nutshell is a genre-bending thriller that offers readers a birds eye view into the rigors of med-school through the lens of a supernatural-tinged, multi-generational drama.” –Vine Voice

During Dust Bowl days in west Texas, a country doctor with shaky credentials delivers a baby, a so-called “monster,” acceptable parlance of that era indicating a newborn with multiple birth defects.

Later, Ivy Pettibone is mistakenly thought schizophrenic due to her garbled speech, landing her in a mental institution. There, she weaponizes one of her unusual birth defects, allowing her to emerge as an alpha female among the inmates.

In a parallel story merging decades later, Chase Callaway, grandson of Ivy’s delivering “doctor,” enters medical school planning on a career in psychiatry. While working as an aide in the mental institution, he strikes up a friendship with Ivy whereupon their lives become intertwined. After observing a surgical procedure with its instantaneous success, Chase alters his path toward specializing in general surgery. There, he ignores warning signs that he might be headed in the wrong direction. As Chase builds his shell of emotional protection to combat the “sins of commission” that are encountered in surgery, his armor includes one rusty bolt – his relationship with a distant physician-father who never finished his surgical residency.

Relationships shift and coincidences abound, raising the question of metaphysical explanations. Is the Callaway family haunted by a 13-generation curse? Is Ivy a designated guardian angel for Chase? Or, is the saga a simple tale made complex by quirky events?