Keep a Good Thought

Dick is no ordinary salesman. In point of fact, he is less than ordinary. Caught between his bravado and his self-loathing, he becomes the battleground for forces larger and more dangerous than his own petty worries and sets in motion a conflict between two brothers that threaten to leave him lying as collaterally unemployed.

Joseph Neri is a writer living and working in Long Beach, CA. Of Mexican-American descent, Mr. Neri grew up in Los Angeles suburbs forever testing the strength and value of truth and fact against the prized virtues of loyalty and obedience to family. It is an endless conflict but its outcome is never in doubt. A voracious reader and traveler early in life, he managed to meet a great variety of people outside his tightly knit family and culture but returned to find himself too ready to fight over an issue offensive to his clan or argue a point unimportant to his past friendships to remain a part of their lives. For long the prodigal son, he returned to care for aging parents at mid-life, and to finally carve out a career that meant more to him than to accommodate the expectations of others. Mr. Neri considers his fortune to be his loyalty to facts and truth and to the loyalty and love of friends, who forgive his many faults.