Fiction

Look Out the Candyman is a gritty love story set against the raw 1970s counterculture of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.

A talented rock-musician with dreams of making it big, Mark Roosevelt has managed to avoid ‘Nam by enlisting in the National Guard. Returning from basic training, he’s extremely frustrated because he can’t find a new band. With several weeks until the next monthly Guard drill back in Seattle, he decides to travel to Monterey, to visit an old girlfriend, Gail Loughlin.

Gail’s an over-achieving Stanford dropout and devoted daddy’s girl. From a multigenerational family of prominent lawyers, she’s been disowned by her father, a prosecuting attorney in San Francisco, for rejecting the family legacy. Given her father’s job, Mark’s stunned to learn she’s dealing marijuana. She introduces him to some local musicians and Mark becomes entranced with the Monterey music scene.

Their romance fully reignites and she begs Mark to stay and apply for a transfer with the Guard. Emboldened, he confesses his love. Gail admits he means more to her than any man ever has, but she can’t love anyone and asks him never to say those words again. Because he loves her, Mark agrees. With ambitious plans for her business, she pulls Mark in to help, and soon, business booms. Captivated by the big money, Mark’s music plans stall.

When they’re robbed at gunpoint, Gail’s supplier hires hitmen to find and kill the robbers. Mark barely copes and as Gail’s drinking spirals out of control, he soon finds the real danger comes from within. Rooted in deep trauma from the shattering disownment by her father and scars from past abuse, drinking unleashes her volatile side.

On the night of their biggest deal yet, Gail’s destructive bender nearly costs them everything. Mark faces an impossible choice: walk away from the woman he loves and the cushy life they've built, or become her caretaker and desperately work to find some way to stop her drinking.

With echoes of Almost Famous meets Drugstore Cowboy, in the blurred lines between ambition and survival, Look Out the Candyman explores how love can transform into codependency when one partner tries to “fix” the other. At 87,000 words, it is complete.