"The Epic of Didier Rain is a projected five book series in which we follow Didier Rain, versifier and rogue, through a succession of journeys that span such various settings as the American West, The South Seas, Japanese Snow Country, and Greece and France. These picaresque novels draw from an array of literary traditions ranging from Volataire, Fielding, Byron, Twain, Darwin, Melville, Homer, Basho, and, finally, Rimbaud. Two of the five books are published, Delivering Virtue and Fortuna and the Scapegrace.  My intent for this series is to take the series’ antihero, paramour, and would-be poet – one Didier Rain – and send him through myriad misadventures that pit his highbrow aspirations against his lowbrow inclinations. Rain serves as an everyman, an example of someone struggling to find his place in the cosmos. His is the age-old human dilemma of how to manage the conflicting forces of the sacred and the profane.  In true picaresque tradition, Rain’s own foibles and delusions satirically reveal the hypocrisies and righteous inconsistencies of the cultures in the various corners of the world through which he travels. Although the books are set in the 1850s, my inspiration for writing these novels is in large part taken from the timeless struggles of humanity as I see them played out in the world of today."