Hemingway Days and Bukowski Nights

Adam Blankenship, a young war correspondent embedded with the US Army is badly wounded during the early days of the Iraq War. In an attempt to save lives, he fired an auto-grenade gun to stop an inbound suicide truck bomber. His reward, returning to L.A. broken and angry after losing his job along with his lower right leg. Adam becomes a full-blown alcoholic with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) who takes Vicodin to numb the pain.

He embarks on a novel about covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It might help him uncover the truth about why he was disgracefully fired from his job, then kicked out of the military hospital in Germany. It was likely because Adam ran afoul of the powerful Colonel Shilling, calling him out for chasing Jihadis into the desert rather than helping the dead and wounded after the ambush. He took what was left of their operational vehicles and security, abandoning the men.

The colonel pressured authorities to classify the ambush and lawyers from the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) coerced Adam into signing a Non-disclosure Agreement, forcing Adam to disguise his true account of the war as fiction to please his nervous publisher.

Sarah Murry, Adam's stepsister and forbidden first love, is a tall, green-eyed beauty. A B-movie actress filming a 1970's gangster movie starring one of the famous Goodwin brothers, she's not sure which one. Multitalented, she is also a painter who works long nights on large, abstract oils brimming with vibrant imagery, symbols, and pop-mythology. Sarah has loved Adam since he protected her from the mean girls in high school. She can see his struggle with pills and booze, but stands by him even after he brawls with her surfer boyfriend Johnny. They move into a hostel in Venice Beach then meet Bobby, a punk rock poet who hates the world. They become roommates, fast friends, and rivals as Adam fights to get his book published in full, risking jail time to get the truth out and clear his name.

Hemingway Days and Bukowski Nights depicts three young artists who work just as hard as they play. It's also ponders the pain and stupidity of war, how to live with PTSD, carry the regrets and loss and try to live a better life after trauma. Let fear pass through you. Have the courage to tell the truth. Maybe, even find a chance at love.

About the Author

M. W. “Michael” Downs wrote and co-produced the feature film, "The Year of the Hare" for a wealthy, yet fatally-flawed director who quit their 16mm Gen-X production halfway through filming. He went on to work on low-budget films, cable television series, and commercials through the mid 1990's. He returned to the Midwest to settle down and write prose.

In 1999, he published the short story Talking Politics with my One True Love at the age of twenty-nine. He continued with four screenplays; a book of short stories, Alone and Living on Nothing; and the semi-autobiographical novel, X in the Sun, about his time working on Hollywood B-movies.

For the past sixteen years, Michael was a stay-at-home dad of two boys, caring for his son, Jack, who has severe Cerebral Palsy. Jack has bravely endured eighteen surgeries and countless medical procedures with a fun-loving spirit. His younger brother Charlie is an old soul, and Jack's little-big-brother for life. Michael and his ex-wife Kara Downs are very familiar with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). They lost their first son, Benjamin, who only lived an hour due to extreme premature birth, along with Jack's twin sister, Bridget, who died after thirteen days of struggle on a ventilator.

Michael lives in Champaign, Illinois. This is his first novel.

When Michael is not writing, he creates his TikTok series on PTSD and how to live a better life. You can find the author: on TikTok @mikeylikesit202069, Facebook @Michael William Downs/Champaign, Illinois, and Instagram @michaelwdowns