Larry Elwood

First Blush, Next Blush Larry Elwood

Publisher Marketing: In 1976, thirty-one year old actor Luke Banks is driving from New York to Los Angeles, having achieved his life-long dream of being cast in an upcoming movie. In the middle of an impromptu card reading from a psychic friend he stops off to see on the road, Luke runs into his past in the form of an accidentally conjured and very talkative family ghost. The "ghost" insists that he is a story-teller and must write his stories down - if only to remind himself. Although Luke remains somewhat skeptical and cynical about it, this irrepressible ghostly presence haunts his dreams and even his waking life as he continues on his westward journey. Reluctantly he does begin to write and finds he can't stop. Soon Luke weaves the stories he is telling into a portrait of his gender-confusing childhood and coming of age sexuality. Against the background of his own sprawling, brawling, scandal-ridden but somehow loving family, the tales he spins are peppered with compelling sketches of unique characters he has encountered over the years. Finally, he succumbs totally to the pushy gypsy ghost he knows as "Nadgie" and embarks on telling the story at the core of it all. Out of the need to distance himself, he assumes a persona he calls "God the Author" to report the harrowing story of his unconventional first love. With self-awareness, a sense of dramatic irony and sardonic humor, the tale moves from small swampy towns in Florida to the fading glitter of old Miami, to southern college campuses, the French Quarter of New Orleans, the skyscrapers of Chicago and New York, the missing glamour of Los Angeles and to many locations between. It is a history that includes Luke's reactions to the violent politics of the mid-20th Century, obsessive "old-time religion," prejudice, hypocrisy and even a family murder. Writing the stories down - as he was directed to do by "Nadgie" - leads Luke to a fresh new outlook on "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" during an era on the edge of total transformation.