Jung Psychology Brings
Literary Archetypes to Life

Carl Jung's spirit haunts romance in this stylish metaphysical book where synchronicity and a search for oneness press literary archetypes, both hero and heroine, toward personal ruin or personal transformation.

Southern Literature

An author of Southern literature, Novelist Zolen Caló blends with the big person-small town peculiarity of his fiction ingredients of philosophy and reality  enticing of literary criticism.

1951 · The Outskirts of Relee, Georgia

“Too much!  Oh!  Too much.”

Nora Täuber whispered the words upon her admirer’s chest, there, throbbing still, staccato.  Then, conscious of the draw of her nakedness along the bareness of his ribs, she lifted her eyes into his face.

“This is how I knew it would be,” she murmured.

The flush of passion faded from her abdomen.  She felt it, become dew-like, settled, silken perspiration upon her breast.  She pushed herself further into the mold of his arms and kissed him.

Her lover embraced her¾impulsively, anxiously.

“I love you, Nora.  Oh, God!  You must know that I love you.”

He dropped his lips upon hers and kissed her longingly.  She kissed him with matched ardor.  His passion accrued again at his thighs.  He kissed her, this time, ferociously.

She feigned shyness and tore her lips away.  Her deep blue irises peered playfully into his rainy gray ones, and she laughed.

“On the other hand, maybe this little yellow Studebaker is to blame—its best year yet, they say, nineteen fifty-one—and just perfect for a Georgia romance;  the way the convertible top screams out for indecent exposure;  and with that long and circular chrome nose that reminds me so much of your beautiful . . . .”  She giggled.  “I'm so naughty!  I've never behaved in such a way.”  Her eyes twinkled.  "Oh, yes!  How wonderful¾my love for you!"

She made him laugh¾embarrassed, almost shamefully.

“Do you really think one day that you might leave Macon and take me to Atlanta?  Or Cincinnati?  St. Louis?”

“It might as well be Manhattan.  I do not intend work as a manufacturer's rep for the rest of my life—running here and there to Podunk furniture stores all over Georgia.”

“Of one thing I am certain:  you'll be rich someday.  You look the part:  your shirts starched;  your trousers crisp;  your shoes shined¾and that gorgeous gold watch.”

He shook his head and smoothed the wave of golden brown at his temples.  He smiled and swallowed.

“When I hear my vanity admired by someone else, Nora, I feel so ill at ease.  I say to myself, ‘Maybe I don't know what I'm doing’.”

“You don't?”

He peered at her.  A wince crowded his eyes.

“No, I . . . I don't.  Not always.  That's part of why I brought you here.  We came to talk, remember?”

“Yes.  To talk to me, you said.  But since you first made love to me—”

“Valentine's Day.  Only two months ago.  When it felt so cold . . . .”

He turned his view upward into the April arbor of tree and vine that shaded them in that hidden, seldom traveled corner of the county.  She lifted her eyes with his, then dropped them again upon him.

“I don't remember it to be cold at all,” she said.  “And, surely, you've talked very little to me since then—not out here, anyway—only a lot of yells and cries and the repetition of certain dirty words.”

She laughed.  She kissed him and pulled herself away to dress.

“Oh, Nora, I¾”

“You are such a lover,” she said.  “I love you so.”

He pulled her to him and kissed her;  his kiss fervent and sincere.

 1972 · Early Spring · Beulah, Georgia

“I'll never understand why Austin insisted that we hold the showing here at the house, Henry.”  Nora Merrywell shook her head with annoyance.  “He never consulted me about it, and if he consulted you and you failed to mention it to me, then I am inclined to doubt your wherewithal to provide support to our family in the years to come.”

Henry Terwilliger cleared his throat, blinked his eyes, and dabbed his handkerchief at a raindrop that trickled from his balding head toward the rim of his glasses.

“He did not consult me, Mrs. Merrywell.  He simply informed me.”

The middle-aged woman, her hair, thick, once a deep and dark brunette now moved somewhat toward gray and surrounding a delicate face not accustomed to worry, practiced the formation of new lines around mouth, eyes, and brow as she responded to the stress of the past few days.  She shrugged tensely.

“Well, here we are, mid-March, day after day of cold rain, half of our guests' cars stuck on the front lawn, Mybo who babbles like a baby, and my daughter who plays a Chatty-Kathy as if this were some kind of social event, when—”

“She merely tries to make things appear as normal as possible, Mrs. Merrywell.”

“While you stand before me and worry me with financial details sufficient to spin me into a nervous breakdown.”

“I only mentioned a concern about Mybo's readiness to—”

“Mybo is not emotionally unstable.  Surely, he finds reason to be upset.  And Katelynn's refusal to participate with him in tonight's observance¾and I, personally, do not blame the poor thing¾has, nevertheless, upset him doubly.”

The accountant gathered the lapels of his suit coat in his hands and propped the balled fists that held them upon the top of his belly.

“Forgive me that I say so, Mrs. Merrywell, but Mybo should not need to rely upon the social tastes of a young lady still in her teens to perfect his familial and commercial obligations.”

“Do you now imply that my son lacks sufficient self esteem to manage—”

“I did not say that, Mrs. Merrywell.”

“But you wanted to say that . . . and . . . and, well . . . I could concede the point.  You, an accountant, would see a self-esteem issue while I, a mother, see only a temporary timidity, a residue of adolescent fears.  So let me ask you to find Mybo¾wherever he hides himself in this house¾and build his esteem a bit.”  Activity in the foyer claimed Nora’s attention.  “That sounds like Miss Stephanie.”  She listened a moment.  “And Reverend Toombs.  I need to go.”  She implored him with a sigh.  “Please, Henry, find Mybo.  Pull him from his doldrums.  He should be here to greet our family and friends.”

She heeled upon the plush white carpet around which spanned the densely paned French windows of the dining room and walked toward the marbled foyer.  She smoothed the black silk dress she chose for the occasion and searched among the clusters of guests in the living room.  There she caught the eye of her daughter who stood with guests before a hand-carved and flower-draped coffin.  She motioned to her.

The young woman¾tall, slim, wide shoulders, over which fell a finely textured stock of dark brown hair, thickly curled, dangled richly against her cheeks to frame an oval face of fairest skin and welcome smile¾she, a nearly perfect reproduction of her who once graced the leather seats of a tulip-yellow Studebaker—acknowledged.  Natalie Merrywell approached that other woman, her mother, the widow of Austin Merrywell, the richest man in Beulah, Georgia.