The holly and the fleece

the long version

The Holly and the Fleece is the story of a quest for the red-berried California holly called toyon by the Spanish, and for the legendary golden fleece of the argonauts. The searcher is a bohemian academic, rich in worldly rewards and yet bent on pushing his marriage to the edge to realize his birthright creativity. In writing this book he cut his prose to the bone, determined to go naked the rest of the way. The idyllic setting is a canyon in the Santa Monica range as yet unsung in literature. The other man in the story is a developer who lusts to bulldoze the mountains from the city to the sea. Here are the impossible choices man faces. Where lies fulfillment when two are needed and only one may be had?