Sweet William, An Introduction by Martie Ingebretsen
It was raining the night Sweet William was born. The steady drops tapped on the overturned aluminum boat outside my bedroom window, while I was safe and warm in my bed in a small city in Los Angeles County. I stayed awake wondering how William was coping with so much rain, writing his answers into my dreams. He was one person made by my imagination into every man. I wrote his story because my heart told me that I needed to. He lived in my computer and in the hearts of friends that I shared his life with. As his life changed, I became a better person. Everyone I shared his life with, loved him and through him, me.
The Library Sunset with Sweet William
The crackle of a turned page
someone clearing their throat
thoughts zipping
in and out of sections
skidding across tables
zapping from computer terminals
the perfume of knowledge
surrounded him
crisp and clean
with an edge of dusty history
everything hushed and polished
From the window
he could see the mountain
like he could walk there
some spring to the place of Manzanita
its red-barked graceful trunk
and yellow Scotch Broom
abandoned down the hillside
falling over boulders painted
red and black with graffiti
now covered with winter snow
turned pink from the setting sun
As he left the library
those beloved doors closed
and the cement steps
the clock tower
even the sidewalk
were stained mauve
as violet windows watched
the end of day
The high craggy peaks
of cement and concrete
steal and glass
at this moment captured
the rosy glowing countenance
of the sky
He saw buildings instead of trees
but there was that same
reverent hush around him
that he had felt in the library
the same upturned rapture
I painted his dark curly hair and his blue eyes and I felt his pain. I also felt his triumph when the wonderful publisher, Buddhapuss Ink LLC, read his story which had become my story, and liked it. My good friend, Mariam Kobras, inspired me when she told me how she had signed with them and published her first book, Distant Shore. What did I have to lose? I have gained so much because I have this itch to write and if I don’t scratch it with words I think I might explode.
“You are an author now,” Mariam tells me. Yes, I am.
About Sweet William and Martie:
Each of us carries the seeds of good and evil. It's William's turn to choose. Will he remain locked in his cold prison of anger and loss, or reclaim the key to peace held for safekeeping by two angels?.
William was a happily married father, working as a mechanic when his life begins to slowly unravel after his father's death.
William’s arrest on suspicion of child molestation is the catalyst that finally puts him back on the road to recovery. For too long he was caught in a web of guilt that turned him from the owner of a successful chain of gas stations and loving family man, into a homeless alcoholic who spent his time dreaming. What appears to be just one more turn of bad luck turns out to be the turning point that allows him to open the door to the past and, at long last, accept it, and the love of the people around him. Slowly, life welcomes back William, and he is ready to embrace it once more.
A fast read, each chapter is introduced by a short piece of a larger poem that follows/mirrors the books storyline.
Martie Odell Ingebretsen was born in Pasadena, California. She studied English literature, creative writing, and child development at various universities. Inspired by her father—whose stories were published in The Saturday Evening Post—she has been writing since the second grade. She strives to create characters who are always learning, growing, and trying to find answers to big questions. Her poetry has been published in journals, magazines, and various anthologies. She and her husband currently live in California, as do their two sons and four grandchildren. Sweet William is her first novella.
Sweet William is one of those amazing books that reaches out and grabs you. Cloaked in the structure of words and sentences, it tangles itself around your heart and shows you how much the simplest act can affect the lives of others.
Long after we had first read it and decided to publish it, I found myself wondering how we could build on that idea of simple acts. I hope you'll approve of our decision.
Because William, the protagonist, a guy who might be your neighbor, cousin, or friend, shows so clearly how we are all just one crisis away from homelessness, Buddhapuss Ink will donate 10% of the profits from the first year's sales of Sweet William to the Coalition for the Homeless.
The Coalition works with homeless men, women, and families—including those affected by the recent Superstorm Sandy which devastated our area in October.
We'd like to think it's our way of being their Nell.
