The Simi Pentimento

By Ronald S. Palmer

I came of age during the 1960s, a pivotal decade of cultural change. The space race was in high gear. The hippies flourished in Haight-Ashbury. The Stonewall Riots launched the gay rights movement. The Vietnam War dragged on and on. Even with these narratives unfolding on the world stage, it was the personal stories of my family that captivated me. My stepfather had a story, but he was a cold fish and disclosed little about his childhood, his strict New England upbringing, his schooling, or how he became an aircraft mechanic. He led an insular life, and he never seemed to realize that sharing his story might be a first step toward ending the loneliness that became an insurmountable obstacle to a happy family life. My mother had a story too, and often quipped that her life was an open book. Over time, however, I began to realize that she would only talk about the few happy times she had experienced. Little by little I began to see that something bad had happened to her as she was setting out on her journey into adulthood. She grew so fearful of her buried secret, she allowed it to cripple every important relationship in her life.My father was one of the finest storytellers I ever knew, and he told his story to anybody who would listen. Many times he said there was a book or a movie in his colorful story line, if only he could find a ghostwriter. He never moved forward with the task of writing about his life. It remained for him an unrealized wish. While I sometimes thought my parents led more interesting lives, I was the only one in the family with the resolve to put my story on the page. In that way, I connected with people who grew to love me. In that way, I made peace with my secrets, and exorcised the personal demons that would have held me back. Like my father, by telling my story I befriended people far and wide, because they recognized their own truths reflected in my life. Unlike some memoirists, I'm not trying to nail down my past, or to prove that my interpretations of events are right. Rather, my intention has always been to look back with gentle curiosity and compassion, making a heartfelt effort to understand the perspectives and motives of those whose decisions shaped my formative years. Rather than try to document my experience with facts and figures, I have adopted the mindset of examining an old familiar painting, looking at it long enough to recognize when other images-different interpretations-begin to bleed through. This pentimento practice informed my writing from the outset, and it gives my memoir an everyman quality that many of my test readers have found unique and deeply meaningful.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1975999622
• ISBN13: 9781975999629
• Release Date: May 2018
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.9" x 6.0"