James Pearce

James Pearce has lived in both Southern and Northern California all his life. He has degrees in Literature, Biology, and Clinical Science. He has worked in the Clinical Laboratory field as a Director of Laboratory Operations in a large clinical laboratory for nearly as many years as he has been painting. Retired now, he has time to write something other than laboratory technical explanations and procedures. Scientific and Art publications are mentioned elsewhere.

James now resides in Dana Point, California, one mile from the beach, with his wife, Elizabeth. He has written approximately fifteen books for his grandchildren, and has written the first of what will be a series, “Just be Home by 5”.

Recently, James has written a novel, “The Reversal of Misfortune - The Failure at Tarasp”. The “misfortune” is what seemed like the inevitable end of Patrick O’Conner, an Irish corporate investigator from Cork, and Jared Price, an ex-CIA operative who’s real credentials come from Compton, California. The “reversal” takes place towards the end of the book, on a train in Switzerland, on abandoned tracks heading straight into a mountain in the Alps. The book takes place on a Santa Monica beach, Ireland, Switzerland, and Cuba, and includes very personal conflicts with literary personalities from the past, a torrid argument, rant, really, between Jared and Patrick over everything from vaccinations (exposing the real reason behind the low vaccination rate in the US), gun violence (Patrick explains to Jared, “Look, I’m from Ireland. We know a thing or two about kidnapping”).

The past, present, and future are freely employed, as well as a short conversation, or apology, to Aristotle for using “deus ex machina” from his Poetics, in the middle of the novel, in order to transport our protagonists to Cuba (where one of the main literary themes of the book is ambiguously examined), rather than the end of the book, as Aristotle was protesting its use (unless you count the entire SW helicopter fleet showing up 15 minutes after the “reversal” takes place as an example of deus ex machina). But, as you can surmise, the full use on fiction’s freedom is in play here.

James throws the current political environment into the fictional global future, out to 2040, at least, documented with quotes excerpted from non-existent, future history books (remember, this is fiction).

It is clear, James had a great deal of fun writing about a number of serious subjects. But, the Pearce home is one where all on opposite sides when it comes to politics, and where the dogs usually win, because there are three of them.

The subsequent book, “”The Damaged Door” is more serious, personal, and at times, frightening, and perhaps is a better book. Thankfully, the most recent book is a book of poems that is a mix of serious poems with more humorous, science based poems, tackling topics like sunspots, allergies (featuring T and B-cells, Natural Killer Cells, and our Immune System’s WMD, cytokines), and “The Dinner Party”, a poem in four parts that explains what scientists are now trying to rationalize; what happened before the ‘Big Bang” that started all this craziness.