This is the home page for the novel, SIMON, written by Richard Kennedy.
Richard Kennedy has been writing novels and poetry for the past three decades.
Simon is his "favorite" novel because it is so "pristine". It is written from the perspective of a 16-year boy who is tragically stricken with an incurable disease which, though known in its basic form, is absolute "unique". Unfortunately, this means Simon will have precious little time left to live out his life, fulfill it, and come to terms with his fate. Kennedy mixes tragedy and comedy to add and enliven the depth of this work. There are several outlandish and hilarious passages which mollify the sadness of Simon's destiny, mixed with intense depression, bitterness, and anger at the Fates. In the end, however, Simon, must meet his end too soon. But though all of the up-side-down-ness of it all, he eventually finds a way to deal with his abbreviate "existence". Life turns out to be a double-edged sword for Simon. The shortness of his life is "fantastically" reward by a number of exceptional gifts that come from- who knows where? It is a compelling story about learning how to live and learning how to "not be" which will give the reader a new way to look at life. Simon has it all: humor, laugh galore, incredible sadness, hopeless, revival, and integrity. But most of all Simon is about "being alive" and learning how to live- not die. An unwilling genius will give any reader a new and refreshing platform on which to base his or her philosophy of life. |
