| In
last year's issue of The Online Journal
we met the Delaware gardener
Herman
Funk, aka Funky, whose commitment to
the environment is surpassed only
by his
love of hostas. His clients include Ray and Shirley, a retired couple
with an extensive hosta collection, and Cass and Gloria, Washingtonians
with a
shared beach house who are encountering hostas for the first time. A
third
client manages an office park where Funky is installing the landscape
with the
aim of raising environmental awareness while promoting hostas. |
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We
also met Agnes
Doolittle, a wealthy divorcée who has recently relocated to Lewes from
Philadelphia's Main Line, and who has contracted Demetrio Perez as the
gardener
who will help her install her exclusively blue hosta collection brought
from
Philly en masse in her new garden.
Demetrio
learns early on that Agnes, though an avid collector, is clueless as a
gardener, her deceased husband having ordained that gardening is dirty
and thus
not fit for a woman. Demetrio convinces Agnes to engage with her hostas
from a
new perspective, getting to know them up close and personal as a
gardener—while
he ekes out a living as a migrant gardener. |
| While
planting a specimen of Victory in
the garden of Ray and Shirley, Funky hears a voice that he believes to
be
Ray's, which Ray categorically denies. Are the voices in Funky's head
purely
his imagination, an ominous first indicator of schizophrenia, or
something
else? This issue of OLJ picks up
where we left off under the new title of Hosta
Seizure, remaining faithful to the novel's tagline: While gardeners tend their hostas, hostas tend
their gardeners …
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* Editor’s note:
The author, Jim Henry, is interested in your thoughts regarding this
conclusion
to the novel. Jim has generously agreed offered us the balance of the
chapters
through to the completion of this story. Use the text box provided to
interact
with Jim and share your thoughts. Established nomenclature standards
have not
been applied in order to preserve the literary style of the writer.
Jim
envisions future installments in the life of Funky. Check this
link out for news of Funky:
http://hostaseizure.com
The first link is to
a page that is using the tried-and-true
PDF. The links
in the table below are to the different chapter sections of this large
document in the "page-flipping"
format. Enjoy!
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