Writing Crazy

All my books have characters who struggle with mental problems. None as much as Dimitri, the main character in Ivan’s Wife. He’s creative, emotional, insecure, complicated, and often delusional. He’s been fun and sometimes a challenge to capture. In this excerpt, Dimitri considers his father, a famous composer, and ruminates about the role he played in his life.

My mind barely touched reality. You would think being locked in the asylum for two weeks had given me time to think. Just the opposite. Electrocuting my brain had blasted my memory to the far end of nowhere. But, I didn’t need a half-ass shrink to know my father was a serpent slithering along the perimeters of my life waiting for the right time to murder me. He was no different now than when I was a dumb kid crumbling into a medley of ticks, hives, and chewed fingernails at the sight of the great composer. His crusade for retribution over my mother’s death started at birth. The worst was my birthday. He’d sit at the head of the table, gazing off with basset-hound eyes while he twisted his wedding ring.