Thomas Paul Stanton was born blessed with a strong personal character, exceptional good looks and, at first glance, appeared to be the all American dream boy. Born in 1960, at the end of the baby boom, he was raised in a socially revolutionary era of American history. It was the dawning of the age of enlightenment, the sexual revolution, and the fight for individual rights. Isolated by the obscurity of the burgeoning middle class sprawl, Thomas Paul finds himself standing alone to face unrelenting adversity. With no education, no knowledge of a family life beyond his own, and nowhere to turn, he endures the neglect of his physically and mentally ill mother, the tyranny of his menacing father, and finally, just as he begins to find new hope, the ultimate abuse and betrayal by a trusted priest. This is a story about a family, from which hidden pathologies emerged, over time, to form and mold their children into adults and set their moral compasses. It is about parents, and how the environments they create shape us as people of the world. The writers delve into the heart and mind of Thomas Paul as he, with hope, courage, and deep spiritual convictions, struggles to learn the true meaning of love, forgiveness, and the value in living.
About the Author: ANDREA BOUVIER grew up in small French speaking town in Saskatchewan, Canada. Her love of literature and the English language was ignited by her tenth grade English teacher. In 1992, she graduated with a degree in education from the University of Regina, Canada. Soon thereafter she moved to Louisville, KY, and started a family. With her two daughters well on their way, she reset her focus on her earlier passions and decided she wanted to write. Bouvier attended a writing workshop, offered through the University of Louisville's Shelby Campus, under the tutelage of published author, the late Gary Devon. After completing the workshop, she joined a writer's group with some of her peers under the continued guidance of Mr. Devon, and worked on her first, as yet unpublished, novel. After years of sharing their mutual love of reading, Andrea and her close friend, Mark Clements, realized that they had a compelling and timely story to tell and believe they have done so with Tall Trees. MARK RICHARD CLEMENTS is a practicing cosmetologist in Louisville. He derived most of his education informally, behind his chair. "Necessity is the mother of all invention," is a cliché with which, Mark has come full circle. Throughout his life, through necessity, and invention, he has amassed a litany of skills, and, as a result, has evolved as an artist. Channeling the awakened artist within, he has used words as brushstrokes on canvas, collaborating with his close friend, Andrea Bouvier, to tell this important story.