Michael Lee Lockett

Left of Paradise Michael Lee Lockett

Left of Paradise is a literary portraiture and introspective of the life of a young, prince, born in the land of Eden. Driven of ideals, which appear to buffer a much harsher reality, the ordinary prince grapples to make sense of his world- a world in which all men a re perceived to be king. Though Eden boasts of much prosperity, it is fueled by the hardship of a formerly proud and prolific working class. However, in modern time, the kingdom, reveals a more conflicting sentiment for the majority of its inhabitance, and, now, the Commersants (those, who prosper in the land), have found a new economy fueled by the ills of the pervading poverty and sickness overcoming Eden. Desperate for reconciliation, the young prince sets off to other lands at the peak of his disillusion, and yet throughout his life, he struggles to mediate the paradox of ideals and truths. Metaphoric, magically written, deeply personal, and hopeful, Left of Paradise offers beautiful insight and great reconciliation, in the princely journey from Eden to Paradise. "Paradise" is Lockett's third published work after "A Humdrum of Shorts" and "By Earnest Way of the Tree."