Kisses from a Distance is a memoir that was conceived after the death of the author's mother and the discovery of a cache of over 200 letters in her personal effects. The correspondence spanned some sixty-five years and was mainly from family and friends in her native Lebanon. The discovery of the letters stimulated Mr. Ellis' memories and he began a journey to verify the truth of the stories he had heard as a youth. After several trips to the land of his ancestors, visiting with relatives on both sides of his genealogy, trips to libraries, scouring archives, and reading and collecting obscure books, he unearthed many historical facts that are unknown to the general public. The author was often surprised at what he learned and each time he thought the storyline was set it would take a different twist or turn.
The tale begins with the virtual kidnapping--and ultimate marriage--of the author's grandmother from a remote Lebanese convent in 1895. It chronicles that unhappy marriage through the birth of children, including the author's mother, family financial difficulties, and the emigration of the author's grandfather to the New World. The left behind family suffers through the First World War, the accommodations that had to be made due to the oppressive rule of their Ottoman masters, starvation, rampant disease, natural disasters, and death.
Mr. Ellis intersperses his travels in the narrative with the history of the period as it affected the Lebanese people in general and his relatives in particular. The journey spanned nearly eight years before the manuscript was finally completed.
Comprehensive written and oral records contributed to making this work into an engaging story of general interest. It ushers the reader into a world of intimate thoughts and actions, oftentimes in the characters' own words.
Raff Ellis is a former computer industry executive and writer of short stories, essays, and political commentary. His first book, Kisses from a Distance, is being released on or about August 5, 2007 by Cune Press, Seattle, Wash.
Mr. Ellis has visited the Middle East many times, having traveled to Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, and Lebanon. He has always been interested in, if not fascinated by, the history of his Lebanese ancestors and the environment from whence they came.
His book was born of the discovery, after her death in 1994, of correspondence his mother had saved over the years from family and friends in Lebanon. After reading the letters several times, the notion that they would form the basis for a narrative took wing. An additional eight years of research and writing finally culminated in Kisses from a Distance. A graduate of LeMoyne College with a BS in Pure Science, Mr. Ellis also has a MBA from the University of Central Florida. He spent his entire business career in the computer industry, rising from the ranks of computer programmer to CEO of an Information Technology R & D firm. Raff and his wife Loretta reside in Florida.
