Front Cover Painting: ‘Blue Window’ by Mike Carson

“Meaningless! Meaningless!

says the Teacher.

Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.

What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?”

— King Solomon

 

Can there be real meaning in this life? Is there meaning in beauty? Do our lives have value? Are we toiling in vain?

 

These are the questions haunting Sami, a documentary filmmaker commissioned to capture the counterculture movement in 1967 California.

 

Sami is submerged in her work, yet tortured by her own mind. Battling mental illness, she self-medicates by getting lost in aesthetics, especially paintings, and allowing herself to be hypnotized by the mystical meaning she senses in the Santa Ana winds.

 

She is simultaneously seduced and disenchanted by the ideology of her generation—a generation that rejects the beliefs of middle-class values.

 

Will she find the meaning she so desperately seeks, or will her search consume her completely?

The idea for this book was the result of wanting to understand my father and 

the background in which he grew up, 

with a heavy focus on the relationship between 

my father’s generation (The Baby Boomers) and 

his parent’s generation (The Greatest Generation). 

Fundamentally, Toiling Under the Sun is a belated love letter to my father.

Peruse Corey's previous book and short stories, and learn about his writing influences here.

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