MICHAEL R. FRENCH
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MICHAEL R. FRENCH - AUTHOR BLOG

TAKING NOTHING FOR GRANTED

2/9/2021

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​With a new White House beset by critical challenges, for now my attention is more riveted on the January 6, 2021 Capitol  attack and desecration.  With more FBI details emerging about the planning and execution of the insurrection, how deep the roots might reach, and how audacious the Trumpian strategy to possibly impose martial law, the words “shocking,” “unprecedented,” and “complicity” aren’t enough.  

​The realization that things could have been so much worse doesn’t mean that next time they won’t be worse. I’m not thinking of another attack on the Capitol.  For now I’m hopeful of a period of positivity and peace.   But there are far more things that can go wrong that we don’t know about, than things we do know.  History has never moved so fast, attention spans been so short, memories so inundated and selective.  Instead of divining  the next decade by  what you might feel and want, or what you think is just and right,
 study history.  Read about the cycles of governments, dynasties, and political parties. Nothing lasts forever, but your dreams will last longer if you don’t let your guard down.   When the future arrives, you want to be able to recognize it.

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THE REAL WINNER OF THE 2020 ELECTION.

11/23/2020

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Cliff HangerGreat Book
Available Now
Pass the envelope.  And the winner is…the voter.  
        Specifically, millions  of new voters, many of whom were in their teens and twenties, stormed the barricades.  The #neveragain and other movements of the last four years were great motivators.  In my generation, most of us didn’t vote  until our thirties, if  then, finally figuring out that politics matter.  So what was different this time?    Metaphorically speaking, a lot of us of all ages and races felt that democracy had come down with COVID,  and unless we voted, no one could be sure it would survive.   The  65% voter turnout was, I believe, a record for an American presidential election.  May the tree of democracy continue to grow.   America used to be known principally for its military and economic might.   Now, there is additional power to harvest for the world to see. One voice, one vote, to start the list. 
   
In my modest new novel Cliffhanger, it’s 2030 and America is going through tough times again. An 18 year old young woman, running for political office,  makes her voice singular, irresistible, and unsinkable in a sea of anger apathy.  In history, so often it’s one person who makes the difference. 
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AUTHOR’S NOTE

8/31/2020

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Until now, I have never rewritten a previously published novel of mine, never changed a jacket design or a title, and never envisioned how an extensively revised story could be more provocative than the original. 

The earlier book, The Beginners Guide to Winning an Election, about a no-holds-barred high school political campaign, began to strike me as having more plot and characterization potential than I could have foreseen three years ago. The ability of a cunning virus to devastate cities and their economies is matched by its power to create terror, depression, and anxiety about the unknown. Meanwhile, America’s age-old struggles over racial justice, income equality, women’s rights, and affordable education, to name a few, rage on. The will to find legislative compromises has given way to stalemates, distrust, and deviousness.  In addition, politics has taken on the aura and importance of religion.

My new novel, 
Cliffhanger, probes deeper into two, starkly different candidates in an Indiana high school election.  The year is 2030. The idealism and candor of novice politician Brit is no match for her experienced, charismatic opponent, Matthew, or his shoot-from-the-hip campaign manager, Nathan.  
 
There are good reasons never to bet against Matthew in any election, though few in the thousand-strong student body are aware of his and Nathan’s secrets for winning.
 
A revered and eccentric history teacher at the school has another take on the election. Without saying it out loud,  for fear of ridicule, Mr. Wilson believes  one of the two candidates  could be  pivotal in helping save civilization in the 21st Century.  A 16th-century mystic and prophet, Nostradamus, predicted that  in the year 2048 an elected government would deliberately create enough paranoia and anxiety  to chip away at everyone’s sanity.  

 
Years after  their high school graduation, Matthew and Brit separately come  to the same conclusion.  As they watch their school and home town collapse in unexpected ways, they form a team for protection.  A romance blossoms,  only to  erode from their clashing wills, but it revives when the two have to face a common enemy:  An annoying kid from high school has become a leader of a new political order with chilling intentions. 


​In the sequel, Apostles In Black (to be published fall 2021), lessons first learned in high school politics become a map to Mathew’s and Brit’s survival.
​.
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Michael French On His Characters - The Morning Brew

5/3/2016

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Readers Become 'Friends' with Main Characters of Michael French's Latest Book
Michael sits down to chat with host Dan Mayfield about his characters social media. You can "friend" Alex Baten and Jaleel Robeson here:
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Click to friend Alex Baten
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Click to friend Jaleel Robeson
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Relevance and Relatability

3/28/2016

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 I hope readers of the novel can relate to [the characters'] struggles and impulsive judgments, even when we react by thinking,  “no, please don’t do that!”  Their lives twist and turn like ours, and realistically not everything ends up tied in ribbons.  But life lessons are real.
I try to challenge myself as a novelist by communicating what I understand the world to be.  I like reading other writers who storytell a different vision than mine, as their narrative is as unique to them as mine is to me.  Everything is about a point of view, realized through  three-dimensional characters embedded, hopefully, in a compelling and memorable plot.  

In Once Upon a Lie, a story of the Eighties, my two principal characters seem as different as the Americas they live in—one in a white and privileged enclave in Los Angeles, the other a Texas town with walls to climb if you’re poor and black and have the ambition and talent to escape.  Their paths cross and a relationship as complex as their differences begins to bloom.   Jaleel and Alexandra (“Alex”) deal with societal problem as well as the personal ones they make for themselves. I hope readers of the novel can relate to their struggles and impulsive judgments, even when we react by thinking,  “no, please don’t do that!”  Their lives twist and turn like ours, and realistically not everything ends up tied in ribbons.  But life lessons are real.  Jaleel and Alex even have their own Facebook pages, their interweaving stories continuing in the present, picking up where the book leaves off. 
Jaleel Robeson's Facebook Profile
Alex Baten's Facebook Profile

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ONCE UPON A LIE, EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 5

2/11/2016

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Once Upon a Lie
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Excerpt from Chapter 5 of Once Upon A Lie

    It wasn’t until dinner that he found Marcus again. They sat by themselves in a corner. Jaleel asked where he’d been all day.

    “Cleaning staff quarters. Good gig if you can get it. No one watches you there. Which is funny, because loose change and cigarettes are all over the place. They want someone like me to steal, so they can beat the shit out of me again.” Marcus laughed. “How dumb do the assholes think I am?”
    “Can I talk to you about something?” Jaleel said earnestly. “You’re not going to tell anyone—” ​
    “Let me guess. You don’t like it here. You want to escape.” Marcus smiled, as if knowing every thought rattling in Jaleel’s head. “New kids are all the same.” 
    “I’m not like everyone else.”

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    Michael R. French

    Michael French is a graduate of Stanford University and Northwestern University. He is a businessman and author who divides his time between Santa Barbara, California, and Santa Fe, New Mexico.



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