Seeking Thirst

Seeking Thirst, a novel, by Carlene Sobrino Bonnivier Carol was relinquished at birth and raised in foster homes, downtown Los Angeles. She's too tough to spend any time thinking about any of that. She decides against thought and drifts into drugs and alcohol, and, more positively into art and imagination. She never shows her drawings to anyone and never shares her thoughts or the funny things she imagines that do give her delight (such as the sights and sounds of Spike Jones and Ravi Shanker in love). Carol disguises herself as normal. She acquires a husband, a home, a Honda, a health plan. Cocktails. Some sort of peace. . .till the pop gun and the sitar go off, and the good life falls away. The scream-need starts up again, breaks right through the anesthesia, at about the same time she is convicted of Driving Under the Influence. Attempting to cut down on her drinking while "doing time" cleaning up a golf course on weekends, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to a woman on her clean-up crew who asks her to not have a drink for one month and see what happens. Carol changes her name to Orion, gives up alcohol, at least for the month, and embraces her love for the woman. The tantalizing belief arises that she, as Orion, can be visible and known and, even so, loved. Discovery. The universe. Then, betrayal. Nothing twinkling in that night sky. But there is a new and frightening possibility. Knowledge and courage. It might kill her to try this path, but she decides to face the deeply unknown. She leaves the comfort of her home in San Francisco but picks up and takes with her the nightmare memories of her childhood experiences in downtown Los Angeles. She decides to do something she's never done before: She sets out on a long trek, alone, backpacking in the mountains of Northern California. She takes no alcohol or drugs, no compass, not even cigarettes or something to read. She will know and understand and deal with whatever it is she has avoided all her life. She calls what she is doing Seeking Thirst.
About the Author: CARLENE SOBRINO BONNIVIER grew up in downtown Los Angeles in an area now known as Historic Filipinotown. She was a Teacher Corps Volunteer in Salinas, CA, and a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia. The influence of Asia can be found in the short articles contained in her textbook Reading Attack Skills for Adults (Prentice-Hall) and in her novel Autobiography of a Stranger (Times International, Singapore), which was used as a text at Old Dominion University in Virginia and in the National SEED Project for Inclusive Curriculum, Wellesley College, MA. The Los Angeles community she grew up in is the focal point for the childhood of Bonnivier's protagonist in her second novel, Seeking Thirst. Her third noel, Okinawa 9/11 -Six Lives Breaking Symmetry was completed in 2012. Bonnivier has written articles for The Los Angeles Times, The Washington (D.C.) Star, Sacramento Magazine, The (Denver) Rocky Mountain News, The (Denver) Straight Creek Journal, Stars and Stripes, and Our Own Voice e-zine. Her fiction and poetry have been published in literary magazines, including Cross Currents in Los Angeles, The Anteater Reader, an anthology used in the English Department at the University of California in Irvine, and in the anthology, A Taste of Home (Pinoy expats & food memories). In 2007 and 2008 she taught Writing at the University of California in Irvine. Previously she taught English and Culture at the University of San Francisco, the University of Denver, and at Johns Hopkins. She has also taught Language Arts and Philosophy in Malaysia, Singapore, Spain, Germany, and Japan. Before her career as a teacher and writer, Bonnivier worked as an administrative assistant in the U.S. Congress, on a special project for Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and in the White House Press Office.