10-year-old Jessie Pike sets off to find her father, leaving an uncaring mother and abusive stepfather. She is pick up by Will, a man who will stop at nothing to fulfil a specific fantasy. Will's dream requires Jessie to become someone else but to what extent is it possible to brainwash a child? And could Jessie's search for a father coincide with Will's fantasy?
This novel raises fundamental questions about the adult-child relationship, which will linger in your mind long after you've read the final page.
Margaret Pitz has written an unlikely love story - a chilling and challenging read.
After Dad, a coming-of-age tale with a difference, is the story of Ariel's emergence into the world after spending two years as the often-willing abductee of Will, a man who stopped at nothing to fulfill his obsessive fantasy. It is the story of her emotional healing and re-entry into normal life as she absorbs and comes to terms with all that had happened in those two years.
Now living with her birth father, Arial faces the task of integrating with her peers and engaging in activities more appropriate for a sixteen-year-old. She befriends Pat, a fellow student in a philosophy class at the local college and a gadfly and catalyst for Ariel's growth and healing. She quickly becomes Ariel's window on the real world, a sounding board and a counterpoint and mirror for Ariels' feelings. They shape each other as together they reveal the full horror of what happened to Ariel in those missing two years.
Told with humor and poignancy, this is a charming sequel to Finding Dad, an earlier novel by Margaret Pitz.
It's 1958 and 17-year-old Alice Chorley's career aspirations are in tatters. She takes a mindless office job where she is drawn into – and colludes with – the mad fantasy world of senior secretary Pearl Taylor. Their 'Game' is played out in counterpoint to Alice's more normal (though unsatisfactory) relationship with her boyfriend, Jack. The fantasies escalate and the tension mounts, leading to an explosive confrontation, a startling revelation and, ultimately, a different life for Alice.
"The Game was accomplished with absolutely no physical touching on our part, ever. It would not have made good television – it was ideal for the radio though."
A young New York journalist moves to Hollywood to interview his famous movie star friend Roz as well as the renowned film director Max Petrov. His real motive is to create for himself an opportunity for pitching a film idea to the Great Max on the abduction and sexual slavery of women. The theme of the story gets the director’s attention but Max objects that the film has no ending. Women are missing, true, and their suffering must of course be great, but if they can’t be found or liberated, we can only commiserate, and how much of a story is that? But the young journalist can’t – won’t – give up.