Earlier this year, I published here on substack three series of stories. The first series was entitled “Obituary of a Three-Century Man.” It was about the fictional Jackson Calloway, who lived from 1899 to 2001, his wife Crystalina, and their six children.
lector emptor: the Calloway name is indeed fictional, but many of the accounts I write about them are actual events involving my family members (grandparents and great-grandparents, for the most part). For example, the account about young Debra Mae ("Girly") dying from a rattlesnake bite, and all the events surrounding it — what her mother wrote about it and how people responded to it — are exactly as they happened to Will and Gertie Shannon's daughter of that name and nickname — only the surname has beeen changed. This is true with several of the anecdotes: if you replace the surname “Calloway” with “Shannon,” they are true history. The locations (Mendocino, Humboldt, and Trinity counties in California, and other places mentioned) are also accurate.
I followed “Obituary of a Three-Century Man” with a short series on Jackson and Crystalina’s youngest son, Frank Calloway. Most of it, though, is pure fiction.
Finally, the last series was called “The Return of Frank Calloway.” It is thoroughly fictional, as it occurs in the future.
I have combined the three series of stories into one volume, and made it available as a paperback and in kindle format.
Here is the layout of the paperback’s front and back covers:
Note: I used an old photo of myself (I’m a geezer now, not a whippersnapper) because in “The Return of Frank Calloway,” everyone ends up being physiologically 25 years old.
As it might be difficult to read the text on the back cover in the image above, here it is:
The Calloway Trilogy is a collection of three very short novels (or three fairly long short stories). It is the story of the Calloway family, first of Jackson, who lived from 1899 to 2001, and his wife Crystalina, then of their children, especially their youngest son Frank, who in his life was a soldier, football coach, teacher, attorney, mayor, and then Governor of California, before changing his life completely. It also tells of the resurrection of first Frank, then the rest of his siblings and finally their parents, Jackson and Crystalina, and what life is like for them in the New World into which they are resurrected.
And this is the “about the author” section at the top:
Blackbird Crow Raven is the name B. Clay Shannon uses as his "nom de guerre" when writing fiction. His previous novels include the sci-fi fantasy (talking animals who travel through time and space) "Taterskin & The Eco Defenders" as well as a biography masquerading as an autobiography entitled "Rebel With a Cause: Mark Twain’s Hidden Memoirs."
Clicking either of the two images above will take you to the paperback’s amazon page; clicking the image below will take you to the kindle edition’s amazon page.
Hear ye, esteemed readers: Anyone who has made it this far can receive a free copy of the PDF of The Calloway Trilogy by simply requesting it (and supplying your email address, natch).