Jim Meirose

Understanding Franklin Thompson Jim Meirose

Fiction. Experimental. Middle-aged bachelor Franklin Thompson and his widowed Mother Audrey live together in a quiet small town. But their lives are periodically marred by the repeated attacks of a horrid mental disorder which they share. These attacks strike without warning and drive them apart into separate realities, in which they are made to believe that they will never see each other again. Panic-stricken, they fight the attacks tooth and nail to return to the world where they are again together. They repeat the behaviors which have delivered them from prior attacks. Audrey begins obsessively praying for help to the denizens of a mystically chaotic parallel world which she only is aware of during her delusion. Franklin abandons the apartment and storms frantically through town, pleading to all he encounters to help him find his mother. Along the way he endures the mockery, scorn, and general cruelty of the townspeople. They tolerate his presence, viewing him as a somewhat humorous, harmless town character, albeit incurably and pitifully insane. This novel documents their experience in enduring one such attack.