Dan Pedrick is a retired attorney and mental health judge. In his fifteen years of retirement he has driven for Meals on Wheels, played guitar and sung at senior living centers, tutored elementary school children, finished his third book, and recorded 12 of his original songs on a CD entitled “So Many Lifetimes in One Life.” He has traveled the world extensively during those years with his wife, children and grandchildren. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico near Old Town with his lovely wife Gayle and their Brussels Griffon Boris, near his two daughters Camille and Hayley, of whom he is extremely proud. The author and his family have been blessed and have tried to give back.
Dan has written three books. His latest “Liv’s Story” was inspired by the fascinating and unusual path through life taken by his late Stepmother. Growing up in an era still filled with racial prejudices and limiting ideas of what women’s roles were in society, Liv struck out on her own early in life, crossing barriers and diving without reservation into jobs and activities considered dangerous for young ladies.
All of Dan’s books are available on Amazon. See the links below for more information.
Liv’s Story
Liv’s life is mundane and carefree until a family tragedy strikes when she is an adolescent. She goes to college at Northwestern, gets her degree, but can’t stand the thought of teaching music at an Iowa high school as a lifetime career. She doesn’t want to end up as a wizened, shrewish spinster. She opts to join the Red Cross as a volunteer and ends up in Korea during the war. She has a torrid love affair with one of the Doctors there. The vitriolic racism in 1950s and 1960s America, the hypocrisy of the middle class, the plight of unwed mothers and the suffering of the mentally ill in our hospitals sculpt her deeply.
Her connection to British Honduras later known as Belize, and her wedding to a kind, older English chap enable her to find happiness.
Throughout the book she is connected to Iowa through her mother and her high school boyfriend. Korean War chaos, Japanese pearl diving, Cuban underwater follies, and cave diving in Belize are just some of the adventures of this novel.
To obtain a copy of Liv’s Story in either print or ebook fashion click here.
“This book was inspired by the life of my step mother Jo Ann Pedrick (nee Glotfelty) and is dedicated to her memory. This book is also dedicated to the memory of one of Jo Ann’s good friends Paula Hassler who was also a fellow Iowa girl rebel. Paula left Denison, Iowa in her late teens to travel to Cuba with a water aquatic show in the 1950’s. Her reminiscences about that time in her life helped greatly. It was an honor and privilege to have known my step mother, a rebel from where the tall corn grows.” — Dan Pedrick
Once, A Walking Shadow
Once, A Walking Shadow is a story of mental health sculpting two lives.
Griffin Siler who grows up in Minnesota and Australia is a bright, inquisitive, compassionate boy who is shaped by his bout with polio, his older abusive brother and his work as a juvenile correctional officer in Arizona. He attends law school and becomes a mental health judge who deals with sad, depressing cases daily, but then a different kind of patient, Drexel Macrary, appears before him.
Drexel Macrary is terrible at sports as a kid, and is an outlier until he discovers his love of and passion for the theatre. He attends college in Boulder, Colorado, majoring in theatre. He and a friend after their first year in college establish a summer repertory company in Red Lodge, Montana. The company is wildly successful.
Drexel has heartbreaks in his love life, but it is the start of schizophrenia his senior year that derails and utterly destroys his life. He ends up in front of Judge Siler in a Tucson courtroom and they stunningly develop a friendship. The resounding uplifting climax of the book results in bringing joy to both men.
The Hazing of a Lumberjack
This captivating coming of age novel is set in the mountainous ponderosa pines of Flagstaff, Arizona. The year is 1966. A sheltered young man named Derek Payne is dropped off by his stoical father at the college in Flagstaff to begin life away from home. He has very little experience regarding women, alcohol, drugs and relationships. His arrogant boastful classmates try to mold him to fit their image. He is transformed from a naive, self-centered novice to a man with depth and compassion.
Humor, misfortune and tragedy sculpt his metamorphosis. Derek’s musical background leads him to a job as lead singer of one of Flagstaff’s up and coming bands. He is exposed to alcohol, drugs and fleeting sexual experiences that leave him unfulfilled. Early on Derek encounters Dan Denipah, a Navajo dormitory resident who jolts Derek’s cloistered suburban background with irreverent cross-cultural humor and insight. Dan Denipah is sent to Viet Nam and they continue to correspond. The “hawk” and “dove” points of view on the war are argued between friends. Their relationship is central to the novel. This is a trip down memory lane laden with the music, jargon and experiences of the times
