PULASKI

First-time novelist finds life on other side of the fence

A turning point in Edwin Alan Large’s life -- and his novel, "Forgotten" -- occurred in Union Square, New York City.

Large, a Pulaski native and Wilmington High School graduate, was watching squirrels scurry about and climb up benchsitters’ arms for bread.

One squirrel came to a fence. "He looked out like it was an exciting new world," recalled Large, 23.

The squirrel jumped through the fence, then saw people all about, panicked and hustled back through the fence.

"I sat there thinking, ‘That’s me,’" Large said. "I had this one life and looked out at the world and saw new and different things."

But, unlike the squirrel, Large did not go back to the safer side of the fence. He stayed in the new world.

"The past is the past," he said. "You look forward and just live life the best way you can."

"Forgotten" largely follows the same theme. It chronicles a suburban Pittsburgher with a beautiful wife and high-paying job who comes to believe life is not as perfect as others would have him believe.

The book, published by Writer’s Club Press of New York City, is a work of fiction, but heavily reliant on the real-life experiences of its author.

"Some situations are made up," Large said. "But some are very, very real to me and the people that I know. I wrote the novel for a group of my closest friends. In every character there’s a part of me in there. And you can see my best friends, my family, people I know, situations I’ve been in. It makes it real to me. I think it makes it real to people who read it."

Large, who makes a living singing in the Pittsburgh Opera chorus and teaching dance at Blackhawk High School, Beaver County, had never tried to write a novel before, but had written poetry, primarily love poetry. In October, after a two-year hiatus, he started writing poetry again.

"I found this new voice inside me," said the resident of Neshannock Township, Lawrence County. "I really had something to say instead of peering out my window and describing a blade of grass."

The new voice produced 30 poems and Large was putting them in order to try to pitch them for publication.

"They all fit the pattern of the story," he said. "They all tied together in some way."

After coming to that realization, "Suddenly, the first few lines of the novel just came to me. An hour later I had the first chapter of the novel."

The novel, written in about four months, is presented simply and straight-forwardly, Large said. "I tell a story in writing probably in the same way I would tell a story if I were sitting down with someone," said Large, who graduated in December from Westminster College, New Wilmington, with a bachelor’s degree in religion and philosophy.

"It’s those small, beautiful things in the world that carry the most complexities and the most meaning and the most turmoil."

"Forgotten" is on sale at Jerry Stigliano’s Book Source, Hermitage, or over the Internet at www.iUniverse.com