Author Bio:
Born in Milwaukee, WI, at age 18 O’Hara
joined the Catholic order of Brothers who taught at his high school.
As a Brother for almost 30 years, O’Hara taught math at both the
secondary and college levels, and in his late ‘30s volunteered to
travel to India to establish a branch of his religious order there.
After seven years in India and Nepal, he returned to the States, left
the Brothers, and became a massage therapist and massage instructor.
In addition to doing bodywork, he has also become a certified dream
worker. He makes his home in Berkeley, CA. His time in India and
Nepal took him from immersion in religion to a place “beyond
religion.”
Author Links -
Book Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Leandros Publishing
Release Date: June 10, 2014
Buy Link(s)
Book Description
When
Brother Jim leaves his comfortable life teaching in Catholic high
schools and travels to India, he finds himself unprepared for the
challenges he faces.His assigned task is to start his religious order in that country, but as he immerses himself in a land of unfamiliar customs and ancient religious traditions, he soon discovers that his mission has become deeply personal. Brother Jim questions not only all his vows, but his deepest beliefs.
As he travels across India and encounters holy men, thieves, rabid monkeys, and genuinely good-hearted people of all backgrounds, he realizes that the religion of his upbringing is but one of many paths to spirituality, and a sometimes oppressive one at that. On the eve of celebrating twenty-five years as a brother, Jim must decide what he truly holds as important and how he wants to live the rest of his life.
India
and Nepal, with all their clamor, fascination, and surprises, come
alive on every page in this unusual memoir set in the ‘80s.
Excerpt
Chapter: Monkey
Business
Context: Bro Jim has been bitten by a monkey at a train station in South India.
Context: Bro Jim has been bitten by a monkey at a train station in South India.
…
“Your
wound has become seriously infected. This is why you have a fever.”
The emergency room doctor stood over me and explained the situation
bluntly. “I shall admit you immediately and begin a course of
antibiotics. We don’t want you to lose your leg.”
Lose my leg?
My heart pounded painfully in my chest. Was the infection that bad?
Had gangrene set in? I looked at the doctor and lone nurse that
attended him. If the infection was serious, shouldn’t there be a
whole team of physicians and nurses hovering nearby holding
trays of bandages and clamps and antibiotics and narcotics? Where was
everybody?
For the next
several days I lay restlessly in my bed at St. John’s, a teaching
hospital reputed to be the best in town. In the mornings, a doctor
led a group of interns on their daily rounds, discussing each
patient’s condition. The training was conducted in English, and
since most patients didn’t understand that language, doctors and
interns felt free to make candid remarks in front of the patient.
Each morning I was the nine o’clock lesson.
“I want everybody
to touch the red area near Mr. James’s wound,” Dr. Gopal said to
his interns. “You see how hard the tissue is? That means that the
antibiotics are not working. Perhaps we shall try some other sulfa
drug.”
Perhaps?
He’s saying it might be a good idea to try something else?
The interns poked,
without protective gloves, on the back of my thigh.
“Excuse me,” I
said, turning to look directly at Dr. Gopal. “From now on, I want
to be informed personally about my progress. And I want to know your
plan for treatment of possible rabies. Nobody has mentioned that
yet.”
“Rabies?” Dr.
Gopal glanced toward me, surprised that a patient should have
questions. “I doubt that will be a problem. We are not certain the
monkey bit you. The wound may be from his claw.” He turned away.
“Now students, continue the rounds on your own and leave your
reports in my office. Good day.”
Three interns
remained behind and plied me with questions, but not about my
well-being.
“Is it true that
doctors are the richest people in America?”
“Do
you know a hospital that is needing more doctors?”
“I hear that only
wealthy people can obtain hospital care in the United States. Is it
correct?”
I responded to
their questions in short sentences, trying not to tire myself out any
more than the fever already had. My leg had begun throbbing again
with an added feeling of sharp pain. I was convinced the monkey had
left several teeth in my leg. And my anxiety was rising—I could not
stop thinking about rabies.
“If you don’t
mind,” said a young intern named Sanjay, “I shall return to speak
with you this afternoon. We are completely bored because there is
hardly anybody in the hospital.” Sanjay explained why. The movie
Coma had come to town two weeks earlier, and people were
staying out of the hospital for fear that their organs might be
stolen.
Blog Post
Why write a memoir if I’m
not famous? Will anyone read it?
You write a memoir
primarily for yourself. Unless you indeed are a celebrity or can write a
chilling account of a famous disaster that you survived. Then you are writing
for the public and for that fat advance check you received from one of the Big
Five.
I had no intention of
writing a memoir when I began to put on paper the stories that eventually
became In The Land Of Shiva – A Memoir.
The seven years that I had spent in India and Nepal seemed the most colorful of
my life and I did not want to forget those striking Asian images or minor
adventures I had experienced.
So I happily recorded
whatever I could call up from the recesses of my mind or what was preserved in
my letters and photos. I say “happily” until the day a writing coach told me
what was missing. Me. How had those years affected my life on a deep level?
Sure, the story of being bitten by a monkey and cared for in an Indian hospital
was interesting, but what happened to my outlook on life as a result of
that? How did trekking to the Tibetan
border change anything for me? And if it didn’t cause some shift in me then it
didn’t belong in the book. I took to heart what the writing coach said and
found the real me behind the stories.
So, to more fully answer
the question, we write a memoir for the opportunity it gives us to examine our
life and make sense of its seemingly disparate pieces. And if we don’t
consciously know the “arc” of our life or of a given period of time, it will
present itself to us in the totality of the written word—if we have been
honest. To paraphrase Tobias Wolff, a person’s real life is nothing but the sum
total of the small stories experienced over years and years, given meaning and
integration through soulful reflection.
And if you want your
memoir to be widely read, you need two key things: an “angle” and serious
marketing.
You may not have been
raised by wolves or an Auntie Mame guardian, but what is unusual in your life,
or at least in part of your life? “An African Childhood” is the subtitle of one
person’s memoir, quite successful in part because it has an angle. Yours might
be growing up in a bilingual household, or teaching a number of years in an
inner city school. Find your angle.
Marketing – that is
another story for another day.
James O’Hara
Schedule
June 22 - Guest Blogging at 3 Partners In Shopping - Nana, Mommy, & Sissy Too!
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