White Cloud Publishing

The best venue to access my recently-published books, both fiction and non-fiction, is the website of our publishing house -- whitecloudpublishing.com. You can check out my recently-published Boz Trilogy:

1. "Seadock, or The Last Battle of Berkely" (2011)
2. "Sasquatch" (2011)
3. "Blood" (2012)

Also out now is my just-published  (2012) long-in-the-works translation of Lao Tse's Tao Teh Ching (Book of the Tao), which includes an extensive commentary ('retroduction').

With the printers now and expected out in the Fall of 2012 is the historical novel Downfall of a Jesuit. It is about a then-notorious sex-scandal in the Church in Toulon (the Provence; France) in 1731, where a  prominent Jesuit priest was accused of seducing one of his young devotees. The scandal embroiled the Church hierarchy in the Provence, Paris and Rome, as well as the religious orders, who all ganged up on the Jesuits. It also pulled in the central government in Paris (King Louis XV, his Prime Minister Cardinal Fleury, the Parliament in Paris), as well as the King's Governor (Intendant) and the Parliament of the Provence in Aix. Ultimately, the scandal led to the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from France (1761); it  was also one of the cataclysmic events leading to the French Revolution (1789). The case (Le Proces Girard-Cadiere) was never resolved, remaining a classic he-said-she-said (or, for the Kurosawa fans among you, another Rashomon); whereby lies the challenge for the novelist. Did he enchant, seduce and debauch her? Was she an ambitious, conniving hussy? The book is based on extensive contemporary records, blending choice morsels into the fiction. Did I solve the puzzle? You gotta read it to find out.

Lastly, the best way to reach me fast is through <tgivon@uoregon.edu>. I answer all questions promptly and definitively. For, as someone who knows me only too well is fond of saying, "He is often wrong but seldom in doubt". Let me hear from you,  TG