Sep 21, 2022

BOOK CLUB: My Life as an Onion

By Carole McDonnell

Struggling with grief, her impoverished life, and a needy family, Denise Higgins accepts a job opportunity as a sober companion. Her job is simple: keep Ben Moreau away from drugs and his druggie friends. She is also to report back to his parents – something Ben is not aware of and would not appreciate. Ben Moreau, despite being three years Denise’s junior, proves to be far more alluring than she ever thought possible. Not only is he a gorgeous and wealthy French Korean with an ever-so-charming personality, he is also generous and willing to befriend her so long as he can have her loyalty. Following her heart may only bring her grief, and ignoring it is certain because while Denise is a staunch Bible reader and seer of visions, Ben is a jaded profligate surrounded by drug-taking friends. Denise has more than a few hurdles to overcome. Least of which are Ben's money, Ben's ability to manipulate her, her own growing infatuation with him, a shared ongoing secret between Ben and his friends, and an ancient curse that hangs over Ben's family line.

Her destiny is interwoven with Ben's, and in this bittersweet story that follows the spiritual development of cynical but sensitive Denise and contemplative but loving Ben, that destiny will be sorely tested. Their backgrounds could not be more different, both in culture and background as his wealthy Korean and French proprieties conflict with her poor Jamaican Christian upbringing. But the prejudices of the well-to-do, and of Christian parents and pagan friends will challenge Denise’s expectations and what she believes about herself. Together with Ben, and with his sweet wit and selfish but kind heart, these lovers will grow to discover a fuller and richer life.

Author Carole McDonnell is featured in Intellectual Ink Issue 19

I was a teenager when I first considered myself a writer. I loved literature and mostly wrote poetry. I was hoping to become a poet and a playwright. I finally decided to write short stories and novels. I adapted stories I saw or read as a Black teenager growing up in the seventies because some of the stories felt they would have been better or truer if racial or ethnic issues had been addressed. For instance, when Old Montague in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet said that Romeo and his pals were at the banquet to "mock at our solemnities," it seemed pretty clear to me that the story was about religious differences, and perhaps there were things Shakespeare's contemporaries would catch on to. Or, when I was watching Single White Female, it seemed to me that the racial issue was pretty much in the title. So why wasn't it in the movie?

The pesky pain-in-the-neck me wanted to fix that.

Read the full article in the latest issue of Intellectual Ink Magazine: Issue 19 - Kindle edition by Ink, Intellectual , Stokes, Haikeem, Young-Foye, Charlotte. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.