Bruce Louis Dodson writes fiction and poetry in Seattle, Washington. He was born in Alton, Illinois and moved to San Francisco where he worked as a consultant electrical designer until the 1980’s recession. He then moved to Seattle to work for a small group of consulting engineers contracted to Boeing. Boeing downsized the project they were working on after only three months and he found himself a stranger in a strange land: over fifty, over educated an unemployed for three years – lost in Seattle. After earning teaching credentials at Seattle Pacific University he became a technology instructor at an inner-city Seattle High school and is now very happily retired. His most recent publications appear in: Breadline Press West Coast Anthology, Pearl Literary Magazine, Struggle Magazine, Sein und Werden, Fiction International, Off The Coast, Quarrtsiluni, Contemporary Literature Review: India, Blue Collar Review, E-buffet, The Applicant, Foliate Oak and 3rd Wednesday. More of his writing and photography appear on his blog: http://brucelouisdodson.wordpress.com
Lost in Seattle by Bruce Louis Dodson
At fifty-three William Brenner has played by the rules, an honest, dependable and happily married man. He’s held a steady job for fifteen years; a good father making payments on a house and saving money in an IRA. After being downsized he finds himself transformed from a successful law abiding middle class American to a midlife victim of the recession. Willie experiences a rapid accumulation of loss including wife, home, vocation, daughter, a mother with Alzheimer’s and even his dog—everything but his sense of humor.
Three years of unemployment lead him into overwhelming plastic debt and a low rent neighborhood where he becomes one of many lovers to a talented braless barista who loves sex. He finds himself in a floating world of low-pay temporary jobs, unknown ethnicities and ways of life: Vietnamese, Hispanics, artists, college grads who can’t find jobs, a Buddhist nun, one bank robber and two lawyers. A fox-hole intimacy creates new friends and insight to another world.
This is a story of survival, love, lust, loss and luck interspaced with a narrated account of his mother who escapes from a California care facility into the arms of a drug dealing motorcycle gang.
Lost in Seattle by Bruce Louis Dodson is available from Amazon.
