What is the Catalyst for Broken Pencils?

 

Month after month, year after year, decade after decade I had the same dream. Always the same dream. It was dusk. I was alone in my grandmother’s house, standing in her living room. An overwhelming need to close the heavy golden curtains shielding two large picture windows overcame me … Then I would wake.

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As a child, I remember hearing snippets of information that my grandmother had another son who died. Questions were never asked and words rarely spoken about this unknown Uncle.    

 

One day, I was standing in my grandmother’s living room, alone. She entered the room heading to the back of the house. Just inches away, I asked her a question. She stopped, leaned over and quietly said “Wait right here”. I stood in the room alone again, looking out the two huge windows to the world beyond. Uneasiness and anticipation floated through my body, my heart thumped. What was I hoping to know? In a moment, she returned holding a small black and white photograph of a baby. She handed me the image. My fingertips grasped the slim white edge of the weathered photograph, careful not to touch the printed middle. The picture felt cool and glossy between my fingers. A suspended silence threaded the air as I studied the photo of this unusual baby.

 

Broken Pencils tells the story of a housewife struggling to keep her severely handicapped son out of the clutches of the abusive 1940’s Insane Asylums.  It is a story of tremendous anguish and horror. It is a novel based on true life events.