Why Can't We Get Along?: The Pieces Always Fit

Rick and Trina were ordinary children of Jewish immigrant families in extraordinary times. They came of age while the world burned, first in the Depression and then in the Second World War. Rick endured cruelty from his mother and brother allegedly because of his stammer, and then was drafted into the Army. Trina was bullied for being fat, and her father required her to drop out of college to return to the family farm to take care of her mother. They found each after the War, fell in love, and stayed happily married for almost sixty five years.

"Why Can't We Get Along? The Pieces Always Fit" is the story of a successful marriage with "successful" written in small letters. Neither Rick nor Trina won a Nobel Prize or appeared on the cover of "Time" Magazine; they were "just" part of the American middle class. Their accomplishments and their stories were taken for granted by their own children, Karen and Sandra. And those daughters just could not understand why their father, who was liked by many, was despised by his own mother, brother, and son-in-law.

After Rick's death, the daughters prepare for the estate sale in their parents' house and reminisce over some of the many stories their parents told and retold, spanning several generations. They look for clues in the stories to understand why three of the people who should have been closest to their father hated him so much. They "connect the dots" separated by generations to deduce why their family followed its particular path and come to terms with some of the Jew/Gentile and Black/White paradigms. They grapple with the social currents of the twentieth century that continue to shape perspective and touch their family in the twenty-first century: race, ethnicity, sibling rivalry, and abusive family relationships.

Karen and Sandra eventually discover their parents' secrets. The story is a time capsule, preserving the tales their parents had repeated endlessly but which were largely discounted or ignored. It reminds us that we never know why protagonists and antagonists do what they do until we understand their perspective. And it is perspective that explains why intelligent witnesses to the same event may arrive at opposite conclusions.

The conflicts in the story span decades and, true to life, some of them get resolved and some of them do not. The mortality of the protagonists calls into question whether the conflicts were worth the aggravation. "Why Can't We Get Along? The Pieces Always Fit" is part "The Greatest Generation," part "Chesapeake," and part "how to deal with all the characters in one's life". Readers will want to call their parents and tell them "I love you"…or…"I'm sorry"… or both.

Ross Eichberg has been a partner in two of Washington, DC's top law firms (Patton Boggs, LLP, and Nixon Peabody, LLP) where he focused on representing US and international clients in commercial real estate transactions. He has represented a wide range of clients from sovereign wealth funds to oil and gas family offices to global media companies and is presently general counsel to one of the largest high complexity laboratories in the country. He graduated from Duke University magna cum laude and the University of Virginia School of Law.

Ross is also a lifelong sailor who practices law to support his maritime hobby and his observations of the human condition. He lives with his wife and daughter on an island in the Chesapeake Bay with their two cats and Labrador retriever. Ross' two sons have left the nest and he hopes he has imbued in them his love of nature and especially the sea.

Ross is an occasional diarist and essayist, but "Why Can't We Get Along? The Pieces Always Fit" is his first novel. "I wanted to offer an homage to my parents' generation," he explains. "They put their lives on hold to confront the greatest evil imaginable. I wanted to depict them as real, multi-dimensional people coping with all the problems of real families instead of as stereotypical icons of the 1940s or in their current familiar roles as grandparents and great-grandparents. Most importantly, I wanted readers to look at the world through the eyes of these characters before passing judgment on them. Although the characters, dialogue and events in the book are all fictitious, the themes of love, respect, perspective and 'try to get along' are sincere and that's what this book is all about."