Raymond (Ray) Quinn believes himself to be a middle-aged single man living in downtown Seattle, Washington state, US. Having accepted a buyout offer when the company he worked for was sold, he no longer needs to work. As a result, he has little to do. He is unhappy without knowing why. There is no one in his life, he has no hobbies or activities to occupy his time. His daily routine amounts to little more than going for morning coffee at Starbucks across the street from his condominium and Pike Market.
On the advice of a Starbucks barista, Ray decides to visit Other Worlds Coffee shop near the Seattle docks, where, the barista tells Ray, he will meet interesting people in an environment he will enjoy. Unable to find it on his own, he is approached by an Asian man who offers to take him there. Ray agrees to follow him, beginning a relationship between the two unlike any Ray ever could have expected. Soon after they meet, the Asian man tells Ray he has been dead for 46 years, KIA in the Vietnam war.
“Asian”, as Ray soon thinks of him, explains that he is one of very few individuals caught in a parallel universe between his actual life and death. If he wishes to learn why this has happened to him, if he wants to resolve this dilemma, he must visit alternative lives he might have lived had he made different choices prior to his death. Incredulous at what Asian tells him, Ray, nonetheless, agrees to do as he says.
The lives he visits take place in the US, Antigua, Germany, Switzerland, France, Vietnam, and Rhodesia, at different times, under different circumstances. The one he lived, and some of those he would have lived had he made different choices.
He interacts with people as a young man just graduated from high school. In another, as a college graduate who chose to move to Europe rather than remain in the US, possibly drafted and sent to Vietnam. He meets women he is attracted to, marries one and fathers children. He is forced to recall his violent death in Vietnam as a soldier. After each alternative life, he finds himself back with Asian in Other Worlds, never sure what was real, what was not.
Asian guides him through the process of discovery, always giving him the opportunity to return to what he thought was his real life as an adult in Seattle. Rejecting that, he must choose the one person in the one life he would most like to have lived to be with now.
He chooses Shelly, originally from Rhodesia, who he first meets in Antigua when both are in their late teens. And later, in another life in Vietnam, after the war. Both sense something strange about themselves and each other as a couple. Something that has drawn them together. The final chapters lead them through their discovery of exactly what that is.
Everyone has countless unlived lives. How different would the life you lead be had you made different choices? This is Raymond’s story.
Targeted Age Group:: 25+
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I and three of my friends from high school all ended up in the same 1st Cavalry Division airborne artillery battery in Vietnam 1968. Steve, who the book is dedicated to, was killed in action June 6 of that year, six months to the day we arrived, December 7, 1967.
[Read more…] about The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn by William Matthies
