Read some on your computer for free

It's not that I don't like bookstores. I love them. They just don't work for small, self-published books like mine. And Kindle is a good option if you want to read new titles for less money than you'd spend on a new hardback.

That's a couple of reasons I urge anyone interested in my book to go to the book's Amazon page, download the free version of Kindle on your computer or pocket phone, and read the first chapter on Kindle.

To find the "free Kindle reading app" for your computer or phone, look for that link near the top left corner of the "Farewell Bend" page on Amazon.

Maybe you'll decide that it doesn't cost much to read the whole thing.

If not, at least you'll have Kindle at home or on your laptop and you can get less expensive versions of many new issues, or interesting older books, without waiting for the mail.

And that's my free ad for the Amazone Kindle.

Larry L. Lynch, Paso Robles, CA, March 25, 2011

Gone but not forgotten

Recent photo of the site of the former Moore Hotel

From Chapter 1, Page 1 of Farewell Bend:

As I approached Farewell Bend for the first time in thirty-eight years, my mind’s eye tried to reproduce the erector-set steel girders that once carried US 30 across the Snake River into town. The vacant site of that landmark bridge had disappeared into the weedy landscape north of where a concrete slab speeds Interstate traffic across the river. Likewise gone was the Moore Hotel. With its rooftop red-neon sign, that six-story hotel once defined Farewell Bend’s skyline for travelers approaching from the Idaho bluffs to the east. Where it stood tall above Oregon Street, a grassy plot of land sat vacant.

Another memory

From chapter six:

I attended the Friday night dances at the high school cafeteria for a chance to squeeze up against two or three of the prettier girls in my class –—or those a year behind. That is, the ones who would dance with me. A sophomore I liked had a great tough-blonde look and came from a good family. Her father was the county sheriff. She said no to me two Friday dances in a row after I made the lonely walk from the boys’ side over to where groups of girls were chatting. I held back from a third try.

For the next dance, I wore aftershave under my arms. Pete had suggested deodorant. The problem was that my parents didn’t keep any deodorant around that I could find. I was afraid that walking into a drug store and asking for it would be as bad as asking for rubbers. That Friday, one of the girls I danced with told me I smelled nice. I decided to keep on with the aftershave.

The picture that inspired a passage

From Farewell Bend, page 163:

My first encounter with what I thought felt like love snuck up on me that spring. . . .

Sally was a Payette cheerleader who accompanied Joyce to the one public performance of our senior play that March. After the curtain call, Joyce and Sally followed our cast members to a classroom where we removed our make-up. Joyce and her friend joined our kidding about fluffed lines and a lot of laughing about the moment in the second act when I tripped over a bookcase and had to chase my rolling police officer’s cap across the stage through the bookstore props.

“I thought you were going to fall on your face,” Sally giggled after Joyce eagerly recreated the scene. More than half the twenty-five students milling around the room clapped loudly at her mimicry.

“I almost did,” I mumbled. “Fall down.”

Search inside the book

Double click on the headline above and it will take you to the Amazon page where you can look at the back cover, the opening lines and another excerpt.

Farewell Bend -- Characters in the novel

Farewell Bend mixes fact and fiction telling the colorful story of the people who make their home in a 1950s Eastern Oregon town.

Here are some of the characters in the book:

Jack Kavanagh – the narrator, who at 65 looks back fondly at life in Farewell Bend, the struggles of his family and the advantages of being the son of the local newspaper publisher.

Pete Sanger – Jack’s hunting buddy and all around best friend, most of the time

James Kavanagh – Jack’s father and the publisher of Farewell Bend’s semi-weekly newspaper, The Argus-Observer

Anna Kavanagh – Jack’s mother who struggles to keep her family walking the line

Kevin – Jack’s younger brother who watches carefully to avoid some of the potholes that his brother is stumbling into

Joyce Earns, Kay Caufield and Harriet Takayama – Some female classmates that Jack has managed to befriend

William Osaki – Maybe the best student in Jack’s class, and one of the more clear-eyed

Sandy and Sally – Jack’s love interests who don’t reciprocate

Max Robie, Big Carter and Sonny More – Football linemen who play ahead of Jack and Pete.

Elmo Smith – One of two true-to-life characters in the book, who eventually becomes governor of Oregon.

Helen Guyer – Madam of the Farley Hotel