Those People Behind Us

A Novel

Mary Camarillo

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Year: 2023
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781647425661
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

It’s the summer of 2017 in Wellington Beach, California, a suburban coastal town increasingly divided by politics, protests, and escalating housing prices—divisions that change the lives of five neighbors.

Each character confronts death, betrayal, financial decline, and loneliness as they search for home and community in a neighborhood where no one can agree who belongs.

Real estate agent Lisa Kensington juggles her job, her shopaholic husband, a mother who knows how to push her buttons, and teenagers with ideas of their own. Ray Gorman, a haunted Vietnam vet, lives with and cares for his aging mother. Keith Nelson, an ex-con, lives in his car, parked near his parents’ house. Sixteen-year-old Josh Kowalski works through the shock of his father’s abandonment by slamming on a drum set. Jeannette Larsen, an aerobics teacher numbed by horrific tragedy, turns away from her husband and toward reckless behavior.

In the end, they all discover that despite their differences, they are more connected than any of them would have imagined. 

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Chapter One: Keith Nelson
• Chapter Two: Ray Murdoch
• Chapter Three: Lisa Kensington
• Chapter Four: Jeannette Larsen
• Chapter Five: Josh Kowalski
• Chapter Six: Jeannette Larsen
• Chapter Seven: Ray Murdoch
• Chapter Eight: Keith Nelson
• Chapter Nine: Josh Kowalski
• Chapter Ten: Lisa Kensington
• Chapter Eleven: Josh Kowalski
• Chapter Twelve: Lisa Kensington
• Chapter Thirteen: Jeannette Larsen
• Chapter Fourteen: Keith Nelson
• Chapter Fifteen: Ray Murdoch
• Chapter Sixteen: Lisa Kensington
• Chapter Seventeen: Keith Nelson
• Chapter Eighteen: Josh Kowalski
• Chapter Nineteen: Keith Nelson
• Chapter Twenty: Josh Kowalski
• Chapter Twenty-One: Jeannette Larsen
• Chapter Twenty-Two: Keith Nelson
• Chapter Twenty-Three: Lisa Kensington
• Chapter Twenty-Four: Jeannette Larsen
• Chapter Twenty-Five: Keith Nelson
• Chapter Twenty-Six: Josh Kowalski
• Chapter Twenty-Seven: Keith Nelson
• Chapter Twenty-Eight: Lisa Kensington
• Chapter Twenty-Nine: Ray Murdoch
• Chapter Thirty: Jeannette Larsen
• Chapter Thirty-One: Josh Kowalski
• Chapter Thirty-Two: Lisa Kensington
• Chapter Thirty-Three: Keith Nelson
• Chapter Thirty-Four: Ray Murdoch
• Chapter Thirty-Five: Lisa Kensington
• Chapter Thirty-Six: Keith Nelson
• Chapter Thirty-Seven: Josh Kowalski
• Chapter Thirty-Eight: Jeannette Larsen
• Chapter Thirty-Nine: Keith Nelson
• Chapter Forty: Lisa Kensington
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Selected Titles from She Writes Press