Donald L Simons

Oboe Woes, a novel Donald L Simons

No longer able to afford itself, the west coast Hollywood has moved to Morganhill, West Virginia where it is known now as Hollywoods, aka "The Woods." This is a turn of good fortune for the eccentric oboist N. Emopee, who has just lost his job with Morganhill's Stiff Arm Symphony, due to his failing distance vision. He decides to try for a new job, this time in the film and TV business, calling it "alternative oboing." The trouble is, he must do so quickly because the family mansion, in which only he resides anymore, is being dismantled by his late father's creditors. His father, on his deathbed, all the while, had made him swear to convert the mansion to a home for "remnants of foreign wars" of which he was one. It proves a journey of personal discovery for N. Emopee, to where at the end of the story the truth of himself confronts him.