"The Strongest Love..."

By T. Lawrence Harrison

"THE STRONGEST LOVE..." has as its tag line the observation of W. Somerset Maugham that "The love that is the strongest is the love that is not returned." Following the format of Emile Zola's "For a Night of Love" its author T. Lawrence Harrison begins with the title novella: The powerful and provocative story of a Catholic priest whose life is turned upside down when he chances to meet an aging and dying African-American porn actress and prostitute, who is raising her teen son, while waiting to catch a flight at an airport terminal. Though he risks his life and is willing to sacrifice his vocation for the shallow - strangely heroic - prostitute, she "will not settle" for his love and hopes in vain for a miracle that will heal her body and erase her past.
The second novella is "ADAM'S PEAK" and is a "Maugham-like" tale of unending love heavily influenced by T. Lawrence Harrison's own life journey. It is the story of a man of many achievements, but no real success, other than his marriage to a beautiful young woman from the Island of Sri Lanka thirty plus years earlier. When she dies, suddenly and unexpectedly, from a rare and aggressive uterine cancer he sets out to make the journey to the top of Adam's Peak to fulfill a promise he made to her years earlier.

The third and final novella is "ALL BOXED IN" and is the moving story of a young, gay veteran of the War in Afghanistan, who returns to his home in conservative Orange County, California a national hero - only to quickly find himself "all boxed in with no where to escape" by the expectations of his wealthy family and its powerful circle-of-friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: T. Lawrence Harrison
• Release date: Sep 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311978745

T. Lawrence Harrison

T. Lawrence Harrison - The Reverend Deacon Sir T. Lawrence Harrison - is the pen name of a former Protestant clergyman, former Catholic cleric and Papal knight - and self-described Somerset Maugham and Hermann Hesse devotee. Retiring as the Vice-President of a libertarian leaning "think-tank" in late 2012 to partner with his screenwriter son on several screenplays, Harrison is now working on the intense contemporary political thriller "THE HUNT FOR BONIFACE." Look for it soon!

Book preview

The Strongest Love…

By T. Lawrence Harrison

Copyright © 2015 T. Lawrence Harrison

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The Strongest Love… and All Boxed In registered screenplays with the WGA – West (1654088 and 1684549 respectively).

Disclaimer: "The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic content. It is intended only for those aged 18 and older.

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

1-THE STRONGEST LOVE…

1-Chapter 1

1-Chapter 2

1-Chapter 3

1-Chapter 4

1-Chapter 5

1-Chapter 6

1-Chapter 7

1-Chapter 8

1-Chapter 9

1-Chapter 10

2-ADAM’S PEAK

2-Chapter 1

2-Chapter 2

2-Chapter 3

2-Chapter 4

2-Chapter 5

2-Chapter 6

2-Epilogue

3-ALL BOXED IN

3-Chapter 1

3-Chapter 2

3-Chapter 3

3-Chapter 4

3-Chapter 5

3-Epilogue

INTRODUCTION

Dear Reader, please allow me to say a few things about this short novel in the hope that what I have to say in this introduction will make your reading of The Strongest Love… a more enjoyable experience. As I just said, it is a short novel – actually three novellas following a format used by Emile Zola in his own short novel For a Night of Love which also included the novellas Nantas and Fasting. In this sense The Strongest Love… is something of a homage to the great French writer – but, this was not my intention.

Rather, The Strongest Love… is intended as my homage to a great writer - who though born in France and who lived most of his adult life in France - and was certainly at his happiest when back in France – but was nonetheless English. I’m speaking, of course, of Somerset Maugham – W. Somerset Maugham – who became in my adulthood not only my favorite author, but my favorite philosopher and psychologist as well. Of course, Maugham WAS an author – and technically NOT a philosopher or psychologist – but, then again, he was all three. To my mind, without peer as a writer, philosopher or psychologist. Not only did he write some of the most important novels and short stories in the English language he possessed an understanding of humanity and the human condition that few actual philosophers or psychologists ever achieve. He understood humankind – man and woman – and he understood its shared human condition of birth, suffering and death. In my lifetime I have formally and extensively studied philosophy, religion and psychology in university, seminary and graduate school but can truthfully say that my greatest teacher – apart from my bride (and that is said in all seriousness) – has been Somerset Maugham. There is perhaps no better education than to have read – and reread – Of Human Bondage.

The Strongest Love… is my humble homage to Mr. Maugham. It is composed of three short novellas – each of which I believe he would have found interesting – if not particularly well written. The first short novella bears the title of the book: The Strongest Love… If you – the reader – sees a similarity to Maugham’s great classic Of Human Bondage I would be honored. But, my story is not a simple retelling of his unsurpassed tale of a young man in search of himself while struggling to free himself from his love for an ignorant, selfish waitress in early post-Victorian London. It is a thoroughly contemporary story of a mature shepherd of souls – a Catholic priest - who finds himself questioning his faith and falling hopelessly in love with an aging and dying African-American porn actress and prostitute who is raising a teen son. A self-centered but strangely heroic woman – who, in spite of increasingly desperate and dangerous circumstances – refuses to settle for the priest’s love. While it was written – at least in part – as my homage to Somerset Maugham – the priest perhaps bears a closer resemblance to Thomas Knecht – the Master Ludi of Hermann Hesse’s Nobel Prize winning masterpiece The Glass Bead Game than to Philip Carey in Maugham’s greatest work. Fr. Phillip Hanson may have the same first name as Maugham’s young man in search of himself – but his struggle is in many ways more similar to that of Hesse’s Master Ludi. Both unexpectedly find themselves in their middle-age questioning their pasts and unsure of their futures.

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My second novella is titled Adam’s Peak – which I describe as being Maughamesque or in the spirit of Maugham – but, is in many ways, a self-portrayal – inspired by events in my own life. In this respect, it is perhaps more like Of Human Bondage – where Philip Carey was a thinly disguised self-portrayal of its author - than is The Strongest Love… Mark Mason – the grieving husband in Adam’s Peak – is undeniably T. Lawrence Harrison – a complicated man of many achievements – but no lasting success except for his marriage to a beautiful young woman from the island of Sri Lanka – ancient Serendip" – who becomes his lifelong lover, companion and most important teacher.

Maughamesque or in the spirit of the writer who introduced his readers to so many complicated, troubled souls in so many wonderful, exotic locations. If you happen to be a devotee of Maugham and sense something of his powerful short story The Pool in my novella about unending love I would be deeply honored.

The story itself is the result of two experiences: The first, my late-in- life reflection on my life’s journey itself; and, the second, my wife’s struggle with a very aggressive and rare uterine cancer. Thankfully surgery and sandwich therapy consisting of three months of weekly chemotherapy, followed by twenty-eight consecutive days of radiation therapy, followed by another three months of weekly chemotherapy left her cancer free – but, the frightening experience was the occasion of my looking for the very first time at the prospect of her dying before me. That my bride – twelve years younger than I – might possibly die before I did was something I had never before really considered. It just did not seem possible. But, after her surgeon told me the nature of the aggressive cancer that was assaulting her it did – and one result is Adam’s Peak. Why Adam’s Peak? Because, as with Mark and Akuti Mason, Adam’s Peak was the one destination my bride and I failed to reach when we visited her family in Sri Lanka in 1996. At that time, I made my bride the very same promise Mark Mason made his Akuti: One day we would return to Sri Lanka and together climb to the top of Adam’s Peak – the site of a mysterious imprint held holy by four of the world’s great religions.

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My third novella is titled All Boxed In – and like The Strongest Love… it has a more direct connection to the great writer that Adam’s Peak. I actually came up with the idea of the story while completing a screenplay I was working on while also reading for the very first time an early novel by Maugham and listening over-and-over again to a – then recent – CD by Bob Dylan. The Maugham novel was called The Hero and it is the powerful, heartbreaking story of a young veteran of the Boer War who returns home to rural England a much different man than the young man who had left home years earlier to fight for God and Crown, first in India and then in Africa. The Dylan CD was Love and Theft with the track Mississippi which has the lyrics: Time is piling up. We struggle and we scrape. We’re all boxed in, with nowhere to escape. I found myself playing that track over-and-over again – and by the time I had finished the screenplay All Boxed In was taking shape.

All Boxed In is the story of Jeffrey Peters, a young, gay veteran of the War in Afghanistan – who returns to his home in conservative Orange County, California a national hero – and quickly finds himself all boxed in with nowhere to escape