Woman from Arbutustvscribe20192023-03-25T19:35:31+00:00
The Woman from Arbutus – Book Description
What would you think if you turned on your television and saw a 70-year-old woman competing in the U.S. Women’s Open golf championship? And, a moment later, what if you discovered that she’s one of the players fighting it out at the top of the leader board? And can you imagine the media buzz she would draw?
My 40,000-word novella, The Woman from Arbutus, centers around, Amadora Bazan, a gay, black Cuban refugee, turned American citizen, who operates an athletic club in the small forgotten town of Arbutus, Maryland. After running the club for more than forty years, she has become a victim of tough inflationary times and can’t make the current month’s rent. The real estate firm that owns the club’s buildings and sports fields delivers her an eviction notice and gives her ninety days to vacate the property. Ama, as she is known by almost everyone, faces another inevitable fact of nature: she’s too old to find employment and earn the money she needs.
One of her athletic club assistants, a recent high school graduate, Jake Mullins, has seen the display cases filled with Ama’s golf trophies and suggests that she tryout for the U.S. Women’s Open championship being held in Stuart, Florida, which could award her with the money needed to save their club. Jake sees her workout routine daily at the club and knows she is in top shape and doesn’t look her age. Desperate to save the club that provides such wholesome alternatives to the hundreds of youths who might otherwise loiter in the streets and playgrounds of a town that has severely degenerated over the years, she reluctantly decides to give it a try. She hasn’t swung a golf club in ten years and her first practice tee experience is abysmal, but Jake’s nagging encouragement spurs her on. Against the odds, she qualifies to play in the U.S. Women’s Open tournament and soon bears the incessant heckling of the golf fans, sportscasters, and players. No one believes a woman of 70 years of age has any possibility of even finishing the championship against 150 young women in a competition twice recently won by nineteen-year-olds.
