A Series of Events. A relationship where you are in love, and it goes both ways and you both know it, friends you can hang out with, a profession that you're good at and can help others, living in a place that is beautiful, cosmopolitan and full of good things to do: not bad for a wish list. But you also know our universe, supposed to be neutral, often seems to throw up roadblocks that seem specially designed to thwart you. The protagonist of A Series of Events is clinical psychologist Carson Arrowsmith. He anticipates a thriving practice of psychotherapy in the San Francisco Bay Area and a new relationship with Morgan Alar, a psychiatrist he had a chance, and very romantic, meeting with in Paris. Good times flutter briefly before Carson and Morgan cross paths, not accidentally, with Omar Rome and Viktor Perdu who have entered into an unlikely partnership to avenge wrongs against their families by crippling Morgan, now the proxy for her dead father Gaston Allard. Thrown into the mix is Gloria Belknap, teetering between sanity and insanity, who considers Carson her property and will destroy anyone who comes between them. In this crucible Carson and Morgan face a spectrum of violence from the psychological to the physical driven by family secrets, jealousy, revenge, obsession, physical assault, murder. They do find time: time to be alone, time to do psychotherapy. Morning coffee becomes especially important, a place to start the day, to sit in the sun, to escape the hurly burly of their life, to have that delicate conversation to choreograph their relationship. Carson's foes surprise and shock him, and Morgan is stunned to her very core when her world is turned upside down by her discovery of the secret life of her father. The ebb and flow of their struggles takes them from the Bay Area to Santa Fe and back, and finally back to Paris. Carson and Morgan prevail and they find a quiet place to start the healing process and plan. But there is no time to celebrate. Driven to the brink by her delusion that Morgan has stolen Carson from her, Gloria is waiting in the wings.
About the Author: Steve Crapo is a psychologist and Professor Emeritus at California State University, East Bay. He was a teacher at Castlemont High School in Oakland and a counselor at Abbott Middle School in San Mateo before joining the faculty at Cal State. His practice of psychotherapy included individuals, couples, and families. He is a native of San Francisco, and lives with his wife Marcia in Berkeley. ----------- A clinical vignette can be an effective way of making sense of a therapy session, whether it is some background, a slice of history, a conversation, a dream remembered, or an incident in a client's life that is the focus of analysis. I started writing vignettes for my seminars, and in each vignette it was the job of my characters to act out or present some material. These vignettes provided enough information to give students an opportunity to hone their burgeoning clinical skills. Many a class was devoted to the exploration of the personal and interpersonal worlds of my characters. Mostly it was clinical material. But, as time passed, I began to populate the vignettes with characters that were diversions...some to add depth to Carson and Morgan, some just to be there. Of course, they took on lives of their own. Often after the end of the class, after graduation even, conversations with former students would more often than not turn to my characters: Did Jon and Leda ever work out their relationship issues? What about Jessie? Angela and Wes? What really happened to Viktor and Omar? And Gloria? She looses but wins, doesn't she? Really! What's up with Morgan, Ari, and Blanca? And Morgan and Carson...do Benoît and Didi throw a monkey wrench into their relationship? Then a strange thing happened. Morgan and Carson argued for a change of venue. They wanted more, they said. They wanted to be free from the classroom; they wanted to be free to roam about in the real world. They wanted to be in real stories. They were insistent. They made their case, and it was compelling. I had to agree. The result is Series of Events. I would like to invite you to read my novel, Series of Events.