Peerless

By Chandra Shekhar

Jim's life starts rough.
His parents don’t want him. His brothers despise him. His only friend dies.
Can this neglected, underfed, love-starved child grow up to find joy and fulfillment?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chandra Shekhar
• Release date: Oct 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536510126

Book preview

"Jim Weston? He’s in number 27, all the way at the end of this road, the receptionist told me. If he doesn’t answer, go around to the back of the cottage. He might be working in his garden."

I stared at her. My great-uncle Jim was 98, and I’d only recently learned that he was still alive. To find him living by himself and doing his own yardwork astonished me, especially because the men in my family were not known for their health or longevity. Jim’s two older brothers—one of them my paternal grandfather Henry—had died in their early 70s. My father, now in a nursing home after a series of strokes, seemed destined for the same fate. What made Jim different?

As I approached Jim’s residence, I felt shy, even a bit nervous. I had never met him before and wasn’t sure why I’d flown six hours from Seattle to Tampa to see him. I had heard of him only from passing references made by my grandfather Henry and my other great-uncle Chester.

Jim was never the sharpest knife in the drawer, Henry used to say with a chuckle.

Chester was even more derisive. And not exactly the manliest of men, either, he would add.

I listened with respect; both Chester and Henry had been great athletes, the former a tennis ace on his college team, and the latter a swimmer who had nearly qualified for the Olympics. In business, too, they had prospered, and it showed in their tailored suits, immaculate shoes, and gem-studded watches and rings. Both were big, beefy men who awed me as much with their dominant personalities as with their vast appetite for food and drink. Everything about them proclaimed success.

From their remarks I formed an unflattering image of Jim. I pictured him as a mousy, scruffy little fellow. Being rather scrawny myself, however, I felt a certain guilty sympathy for him. I also used to wonder why two such fine men as Henry and Chester would bother to mock their weaker sibling; he seemed too easy a target. And whatever his shortcomings in physique or worldly wisdom, Jim seemed inoffensive and downright generous; from some of his brothers’ remarks I gathered that he had often helped them financially. Why, then, make fun of him?

It also puzzled me that the family was no longer in touch with Jim. He hardly fit my idea of a black sheep. Families typically expel members guilty of outrageous conduct; in contrast, Jim seemed to be excluded for being less colorful and adventurous. My curiosity about him grew, much to