Tickets to Salvation

Fourteen-year-old Maya Pareto is about to achieve a life-long dream by performing as a flamenco dancer in Santa Barbara's annual historical parade, El Desfíle Histórico. But as she is climbing victoriously aboard a float before the parade, she is abruptly yanked to the ground by her mother, Simpática, then before stunned onlookers, led back to their bleak apartment building where Simpática burns Maya's flamenco dress and cuts up her dancing shoes. Such outbursts are nothing new from this troubled and unstable mother, but this one hurt, confirming what Maya has always suspected: happy endings were never meant for her.

The family's welfare worker Mike Stanning has been scrambling to rescue Maya for a long time with little success. Then something amazing happens. Maya quietly gathers her courage and embarks on a magical journey to re-define herself and resurrect her dreams. As she does, Mike's life spirals out of control, but soon the two will be drawn together, consolidate their efforts, and look deeply inside themselves for courage and direction.

Tickets to Salvation stems from my experiences as a Spanish-speaking welfare worker in Santa Barbara, California. The novel careens through the traps and pitfalls of the welfare system, the tyranny of living with a mentally disturbed parent, and the efforts of a naïve young welfare worker to make a name for himself by rescuing an at-risk child.

The original draft was sprawling, 1,100 pages, with too many primary characters and story lines. I submitted it to several publishing houses, and though one major house asked to see more, there were in the end no takers and the manuscript was tucked away in a dusty box in the garage for many years. But I was haunted by that manuscript and convinced there was a good story lurking within.

When I was able to retire several years ago, I wrote about fifty short stories and many essays over seven years. Then, impulsively, I decided to pull out that old yellowing manuscript and transcribe it from hardcopy to electronic. A year later, I began editing and came up with a good solid draft, but it was still 500 pages. After a professional editorial assessment, I revised it again, this time boiling it down to 280 pages. And now I think I have a fast-moving and inspirational tale.

The story is rich in detail and steeped in Santa Barbara's history, local color and Mexican heritage. It explores the welfare system, the protagonist's complex family history, and the origins of flamenco dancing. It is literary (and contemporary and coming-of-age) fiction and character-driven. It is currently in the final editing stage. Once available to the public, I will provide more specifics on this site. Meanwhile, please enjoy a sampling of the first three chapters.