Falcon Will Give Birth to the Rover: Or, how Wishy Epi grows older without becoming an assassin

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[Note to web editors: Please keep this paragraphing. If you lump everything into one paragraph, you bury the hopes for emphasis and clarity.] The '60s and '70s were epic times: the Apollo Moon Flights and our own Trojan War, followed by a personal and national search for homecoming. Epimetheus, whose name means Afterthought, lived in his car because he wished to be a singer. His car, a '68 Ford Falcon, is a trifling detail until Apollo 15 launched lunar lander Falcon and its extraterrestrial Rover. Anon, a Chrissian prophet detailed the expected landing. Then: "A little later, Falcon will give birth to the Rover." Epi thrilled to hear Apollo's call. No, he is not Homer, but he is a rovering rhapsode, and he is meant to sing of Apollo. Apollo, who calls us to know ourselves, and act on that knowledge. Greek and Roman myths shape Epi's story. The gods are ready if called. Characters from Spenser's "Faerie Queene" return as vital and devitalizing. It is hoped that readers not familiar with these gods and villains will welcome an introduction, characters who evolve and devolve, giving names to our hopes and fears. By whatever names, they cheer or sabotage Epi's Quest. His great venture started as a material quest, to fly to his own Moon, but failures and rage led him, slowly, to cry for guidance. If his mind can make his life a hell, it can also, by divine grace, help transform the Furies to the Eumenides, or Workers of Grace. True homecoming is more than a personal dream. Epi is inspired by countless people who have found their homecoming by daring to live their most demanding dreams (dreams that include a nightmare or two). Their stories are sometimes hinted in headlines, hence expanding the book beyond common bounds: 746 pages that include three brief Epi Logs (with 39 pages of notes available online). Epi's Quest is modeled on the Odyssean search for homecoming, its structure built on the foundation of Dante's "Commedia": 100 canticles in three books: books one and two have 33 canticles each, the third book 34. Who knows: You may find even your story within.

Keith Fahey is most unknown for his essay On Reading with an Equal Eye, in Leviathan, a Melville journal (May 2011). Falcon Will Give Birth was conceived in 1968 with the Vision of Apollo. Keith didn't know he was pregnant. He was surprised when the gravidity lasted years, then decades. Nurturing this new life kept him bound to his Apolline commitment, and fired his will to live--a big deal to the son of a suicide.