Notes from Exile

the long version

When two recent college graduates join an expatriate community in Mexico, lives are shaped and forever altered. The setting is Soledad, a quaint village along the shores of Lake Chapala in southwestern Mexico. Although the lake remains a vision of charm and mystery, it finds itself in slow decline. John Smalls, former small college basketball star and aspiring novelist, and Erick Rose finish college in Buffalo and spend a summer in Mexico. The journey is billed as the transition before the rest of their lives. In Mexico they encounter Harold Chance, cavalier loner, journalist, and jaded philosopher and Max Dorsey, a self-exiled Brit and veteran of the not so well remembered Falklands War. With John on the hunt for his elusive novel Erick seeks love, however unrequited, with local college student Andrea Sanchez, who sports a rare combination of beauty and intelligence. As Harold struggles with his next move, tormented by an inherited destiny, Max pursues a full-time life in Mexico with a marriage to a young widowed Mexican woman. When Max’s livelihood at the large estate, San Sebastian, becomes threatened, the others close ranks. San Sebastian’s fate and the lake’s decline become the concern of each man and a central theme of the novel. Notes from Exile contains humor, love, and sorrow, each in their own time and measure, all ingredients for a story of escape and hope. In the end we learn, often harshly, how each one of us is responsible for defining our destiny. The dilemma is that while some will succeed, others will tragically fail.