Trade Paperback Original
ISBN-13:
978-1-932961-46-1
5½ x 8¼ / 192 Pages / $14.95
May 2008
Summary | Note to Readers | Praise | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Widgets | Bio | Events
Stephen will donate a portion of the profits from this book to Best Friends Animal Society.
The story of a crossed love that is star to every wandering bark.
Together as husband and wife, Nick Ward and Lena Grant ran a successful boutique law firm in Minneapolis, vanquishing all their legal foes side by side. When Nick’s charmingly erratic behavior finally became too much for Lena, the marriage and the partnership ended.
But—like C. K. Dexter Haven and Tracy Lord—it seems that Lena and Nick just can’t quite separate.
Lena works out fiercely, keeps her dates with the boring and conventional Preston Winter, and daily battles on against corporate greed. But Nick’s not doing so well.
Still brilliant and devilishly clever, he is now also almost crazy. He is prone to fantasy and the big gesture, and he engages frantically in guerrilla activism for the sake of animals wild and domestic. Nick doesn’t make plans; he has visions. And eventually his antics put him back into Lena’s hands. While she tries to navigate the legal waters into which he’s thrown them, Nick veers out of her wake and into the midst of a strange set of companions, including Oscar, his psychiatric attendant and Action Comics collector; Ralph and Alice Wilson, the rebellious managers of the city animal shelter; and an aging Russian hound named Wolfram.
Often laugh-out-loud funny, with bright wit and brilliant machine-gun dialogue, The Marriage of True Minds sweetly explores modern love, undying idealism, and one cracked partnership that can’t be sundered—from without or from within.
If you like screwball comedies, like Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday, then you'll love The Marriage of True Minds!
I don’t think anyone knows exactly how many animals are euthanized in shelters each year. I have seen estimates of anywhere from four to twenty million annually, or almost one per second.
This horrific problem requires not one but many solutions, I’m sure. Those solutions start with awareness, will, creativity, and money.
As I hope you can tell from the book, I have deep admiration for anyone who chooses a life of helping animals, whether they work in shelters or otherwise. There are hundreds of animal welfare and rescue organizations across the country that deserve our support. You can find many of them through online sites like Just Give. A portion of the income from the sale of this book will be donated to The Best Friends Animal Society and other animal rescue and welfare organizations.
Until we find solutions, our animal friends will sometimes need a good lawyer. I feel sure that Nick would fit right in at the Defenders of Wildlife and EarthJustice.
For more information on the problem of animal euthanasia, I suggest contacting the American Humane Association or the National Council on Pet Population and Study.
The soul you save may be your own.
Especially if you believe in reincarnation.
"Evans writes throughout with a sense of refreshing humor, and the snappy repartee between the two leads is also very funny and fun. But beneath this slim volume packed with a lot of heart and humor lurks a very real question: Is Nick really delusional? As Nick himself blithely admits: 'I don't make plans. I have visions.'" —ForeWord
"Poignant and outrageous, moving and profound, Evans' delectable debut novel thrums with zesty dialogue and a memorably zany cast of irresistable characters." —Booklist
"Evans demonstrates his playwright’s mastery of dialogue and tension in his accomplished and whimsical first novel about love and the bizarre behavior it ignites. Lawyers Lena and Nick are divorced, with Lena retaining control of their Minneapolis firm and Nick pulling political protest stunts with a hand-puppet named Sancho. When Nick lands himself in jail for filling the pool at the mayor’s mansion with lobsters, Lena, feeling guilty about maybe having given up on the marriage too soon, shepherds Nick into rehabilitation, saving him from jail time or, worse, commitment to a mental institution. Between long, painfully comedic conversations with Lena about their failed marriage, Nick performs community service at an animal shelter, where he finds a new cause to rally against: animal euthanasia. The real “rehabilitation” takes place in Nick and Lena’s relationship, but even that doesn’t stop Nick from pulling one final stunt that will shock the entire community, person and animal alike. As with any good trial, Evans’s book has closing statements to resolve any questions he has left unanswered, and solid proof that he is just as much a talented novelist as he is a playwright." —Publishers Weekly
“Stephen Evans’ first novel, The Marriage of True Minds, is a funny, poignant, oddly beautiful book about three divergent life forms—animals, people, and lawyers. You will love it if you read it with a true mind.”—Kinky Friedman
"The Marriage of True Minds is a wonderful little idyll (maybe that should be a capital I). In a busy world with many dire distractions, this little book is a great way to while away a warm afternoon in a hammock. Funny and politically green, this short novel chronicles the post marriage dissolution period in the lives of two lawyers in Minneapolis. The dialogue crackles like an old Tracy and Hepburn script. I heartily recommend this paperback original!" —Keebe Fitch, McIntyre’s (NC)
"I just finished spending some wonderful hours skipping along to the tale of two lawyers in The Marriage of True Minds. . . . The dialogue is fast-paced, funny, and with Nick, you often have to stop and say, “hmmm, I get it.” The characters do things out-of-the ordinary, and it is so refreshing. It is a book that will entertain you and make you hope that Nick and Lena make another appearance in the near future." —Eileen Dengler, Executive Director, NAIBA (New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association)
"Wacky but brilliant, including an ending that tugs at your heartstrings." —Lauretta Nagel, Constellation Books (MD)
"As husband and wife, Nick Ward and Lena Grant have been running a successful environmental law practice for many years. When the book opens, we find the marriage unraveling and Nick, always passionate, now certifiably insane. But like all the best madmen of fiction, we end up wondering: is he crazy, or is he *right*? This is my book club pick for the summer for book groups that have both men and women. I love it!!!!!!" —Kelly Justice, The Fountain Bookstore (VA)
“I just finished spending some wonderful hours skipping along to the tale of two lawyers in “The Marriage of True Minds” by Stephen Evans. There is a fine line between genius and crazy and Nick Ward keeps hopping back and forth over it. His erratic behavior finally drives his wife/law partner to divorce him, but she can’t keep him out of her life. His final stunt, putting cold saltwater in the Mayor’s pool, along with two hundred lobsters, is about to have him sent to jail if his ex, Lena, doesn’t step in to save him. The dialogue is fast-paced, funny, and with Nick, you often have to stop and say, “hmmm, I get it.” The characters do things out-of-the ordinary, and it is so refreshing. It is a book that will entertain you and make you hope that Nick and Lena make another appearance in the near future. The author, Stephen Evans lives in the Baltimore-Washington area, folks, and if he can create a character like Nick Ward, he has to be fun at author events and parties.”—Eileen Dengler, Executive Director, NAIBA (New Atlantic Independent Booksellers’ Association)
Some reader reviews from BookBrowse:
Rating: 5 of 5 of 5 by Julie (Peoria IL). A Quick Read, Quirky & Heartwarming
This was a book unlike any I've ever read before. I was hooked within the first two pages. Less than two hundred pages all total, it's a short book but packed full of quirky humor that had me laughing out loud. The story reads very fast with a lot of dialogue. There are parts that are hilarious and parts that are heartbreaking....but overall this book is an absolute winner. I love the author's offbeat wit and look forward to more in the future!
Rating: 4 of 5 of 5 by Ginnie (East Meadow NY). This off-beat story…will keep the reader entertained. A pleasant vacation from our own day-to-day life.
Rating: 4 of 5 of 5 by Brenda (boise ID). For a good time...This book is fun. It's literary slapstick. The dialogue is clever and witty, and definitely contrived, but you are willing to overlook that because, well, it's just such fun. I couldn't help but begin casting characters for the movie. If you are looking for a deeply moving, profound treatise on animal rights, you better look elsewhere, but if you want a quick read that will entertain, this is your book.
Rating: 4 of 5 of 5 by Elyse (Creswell OR). A humorous, well-told story that moves along quickly…a "summer read" or a beach book. I enjoyed it overall.
Rating: 4 of 5 of 5 by Teresa (Evansville IN). The Marriage of True Minds has it all: eccentricity, madness, compelling characters, and a hand puppet named Sancho. This is a truly wonderful read! I laughed, I cried, and I laughed again. The characters in this book are incredibly fun and I would like to learn more about them. Hopefully, Stephen Evans will include them in his next book- which I hope will be coming soon!! Write faster, Mr. Evans! A great story about modern love and the daily pressures that keep us sane- or insane!!
Rating: 4 of 5 of 5 by Sandy (Fort Myers FL). Laugh out loud funny. It is a beach read and if you live in the snow belt a great snow day read. It is a little off the wall but very enjoyable. I have never read a book with a story line quite like this
Stephen Evans has lived in the Washington, D.C. area for most of his life and lives now in Silver Spring, MD. Though he works as a computer analyst, he’s long been in theater, writing his first play in 1990. He is co-author of a children’s musical, The Talent Machine, which ran each summer for a number of years in Annapolis, MD, and eventually spawned a theater company of the same name. His latest play is entitled Spooky Action at a Distance—a Las Vegas comedy. The Marriage of True Minds is the author’s debut novel.
Writer Seeks Reader (Steve's Blog)
Stephen Evans on Gather | RedRoom | Shelfari
Unbridled Aloud featuring Stephen Evans
Photo: Avonlee Photography
Click here to download a free PDF of the first two chapters!
Lena woke to dark eyes staring down at her. Sancho leaned against the lamp on her nightstand, holding a crimson rose.
She sighed, then explained to Sancho.
“It's not you.”
She picked the puppet up and held him for a moment. Then she placed him on the bed, put on her pink silk robe, dumped the rose in the trash, and walked out of the bedroom.
Nick's door was still closed and padlocked. She dialed the combination, slipped the padlock out of the ring, enclosed it in her fist, and knocked. The guest room door toppled inward off its hinges like a stop-action colossus. Closing her mouth, she moved back up the hall.
The kitchen was nearly as large as the living room. The original stone fireplace, tall enough to stand in, contrasted with the recently acquired stainless steel appliances at the other end. Whenever she lit a fire (which was not often), the reflection transformed the kitchen into a brushed scarlet inferno.
A wood-block island in the middle of the kitchen bridged the eras. Nick sat on a stool by the island, doing the crossword, stirring his coffee with a hinge pin. Lena shuffled in wordlessly, sat across from him, grabbed the paper, and examined his answers.
“These are all wrong.”
“In what way?”
“In the way of not being right.”
“They fit.”
Lena looked closely. The words did fit in the spaces. And they did fit with each other. But they had nothing to do with the clues.
“They give you clues so that you can get the answers. They don’t give them so you can at all costs avoid the right word.”
“That’s what they’d like you to believe,” Nick said, taking the paper back.
“It’s my crossword. Don’t abuse it.”
“Fine,” he said and continued his work, entering the correct answers this time, though upside down and backwards.
“Coffee?”
He poured her a cup from a pewter decanter she didn’t know she owned. She took a sip.
“Look. This isn’t going to work unless—”
She took another sip.
“This is good coffee,” she continued.
Nick inhaled the arousing perfume of the brew he’d bought at Sebastian Joe’s a half hour earlier.
“Thanks,” he said.
Then Lena slammed down the coffee mug.
“Damn you, Nick,” she complained. “You are not going to turn me into a commercial.”
“I'm sensing that something is wrong.”
He looked up from his crossword. Lena’s long hair was free and tangled and her slightly bloodshot eyes crinkled as she squinted against the morning. Her robe slipped open, revealing rumpled blush pajamas, whose three unbuttoned buttons briefly took his breath.
“Look,” said Lena, pulling her robe closed. “This is not going to work unless you stop this.”
“Stop making coffee?”
“Yes. No. Yes. Stop trying to do whatever you’re trying to do. Whatever that is. Not that I ever understand what it is. ”
“I'm just trying to show my appreciation.”
“Stop it!”
“What?”
“Being nice to me. It creeps me out.”
Nick smiled … and sipped his coffee.
“Now that's good coffee,” he noted and smiled like Mona Lisa.