The Old Man And The Little Leaf

Do you love fantasy fiction? Magical and fantastic worlds? Do you love Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jorge Borges, Isabel Allende? Arundhati Roy and Salman Rushdie? Ray Bradbury, Aimee Bender, Harry Potter, Alice Hoffman? Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Kazuo Ishiguro or Haruki Murakami?

Then you will love this book!

Written by indie author Tara Smith, this is her debut novel; it is a story of an old widower, who is briefly roiled by grief and intense loneliness after his wife dies. The protagonist is an Indian man living in America, but the story is universal. He realizes he is heading down a dark tunnel that will engulf him.

So one day, he decides to step out into the world. And everything changes!

joy which is all around us, if we only had the eyes to see it, feel it.

Synopsis:

The story starts with Mr T, the old man referenced in the title, grieving the loss of his wife of 40 years. The cremation as per Indian customs is over today, with the family gathered here at Mr T's house to share in his grief.

After a couple of weeks, all the family members have returned home. T is now alone in the rambling house with a lifetime of memories and an aching loneliness that grows by the day. Fortunately, he shakes himself out of his deepening gloom, and decides to go for a walk along the boardwalk near his house.

The gray world of Mr T is suddenly attacked full force by the life, energy and vitality on the boardwalk - the trees, the river, the breeze, the people and dogs and babies. But that is just the beginning. As T rests on a bench under the huge maple tree, a leaf drops on to T's lap - a talking, exuberant leaf called Little Leaf.

As the story unfolds, T's life has irrevocably changed with unusual friends that Little Leaf introduces him to. Every day is magical now with adventures into the Milky Way on a light beam, rides atop friendly eagles, visits to an underwater cave where Toxy the fox lives amidst unbelievable splendor and wealth, an unexpected plunge off the earth into the Great Pipeline below from where no one has ever returned. Many more thrills await T and his unusual friends as they move through their lives.

But there is also fear, humiliation and anxiety in store for T; his neighbor, the 12 year old bully Sammy, and his despicable talking parrot have targeted T with their venomous and foul energies.

This is a story of joy, and of the magic of life if one could only see. It is a story of helplessness and crushing loneliness giving way to life-giving, beautiful experiences. Also, it is a commentary on the deep wounds and scars that bullies inflict.