What would life for that tragic character, Andrew Beckett, portrayed by the Academy Award performance of Tom Hanks have been like had he survived AIDS and actually lived out the remainder of his natural life? And let's add only one dramatic change to the original story line as portrayed in the movie, "Philadelphia" (The City of Brotherly Love?) and say that he failed dismally to prevail in his civil lawsuit against the law firm that he had served so diligently. I can authoritatively suggest that it would have been an apocalyptic hell from which "Andy" would probably have never emerged until the day of his ultimate natural death. The hell is the same dynamic psychological reality of a rape victim that survives but is never able to fully regain that ultimate serenity and joy that comes from intimately loving another human being. "I'm now dirty, unclean and unworthy of another's love." Andy Beckett was brutally raped in that imminent domain of his life's singular career/purpose. Had he lived and not been even partially vindicated by a successful lawsuit, he would have probably never wanted to practice law again? "I'll never really love again!" is the awesome feeling that a rape victim is likely to experience, and that frightening prospect is the most fertile of all grounds for the internal ideation of self-destruction.
     "This literary piece could no doubt qualify for the Guinness Book of Records as the longest suicide note ever written." This opening line of the Orchid Hell Chronicles is the bleak reality that I awaken to every day of my life. What has kept me alive besides the Zoloft I take daily is the possibility of telling this grueling tale to others. This literary disclosure is not for some selfish element of revenge against the perpetuators, but to help others understand the psychological dynamics that are such an integral part of the astonishing fact that: "One-third of all teenage suicides in America is gay related." Bigotry—the very diametric antithesis of 'loving one's neighbor'---is a sad social reality that is too often surreptitiously supported by some of society's most cherished institutions. This hellish state and the persistent wanting to take leave of this life is the frustrating and repulsive reality of the paramount challenge of ever having a society in which we really are able to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. What has happened to those family values? Of course, too many of us are not properly taught how to actually love ourselves. And thus, we are continually faced with those Littleton, Colorado tragedies, which aren't ever resolved with such quick fixes of which a good example is the immediate suggestions of stricter gun control legislation, or let's just blame the parents!
     The Orchid Hell Chronicles explores the mind and the inter-dynamics of the victim from the onset of the drama and beyond the grueling conclusion of the civil lawsuit that leaves this victim feeling like a devastated/annihilated Humpty-Dumpty that cannot ever be completely put back together again. Death, in this state of affairs would be comforting!

     Emerging from a lawyer's office in July of 1997 where Joe Walker was dutifully instructed on the legal definition of defamation and learning precisely what was and was not actionable under the law, Joe affirmatively proclaimed, "If this lawyer is correct in what he's saying and he feels that I have no actionable claims against the American Orchid Society for all their relentless shit, what I need to do is write a damn book and tell everyone the whole truth!"  Being the consummate academician that Joe is, the title of the book that he immediately commenced writing described to a tee exactly what the contents too dramatically characterize: Unwritten Rules: A Factual Case of White-Collar Bigotry.  The grueling process unexpectedly expanded to an additional volume with an equally descriptive title: The Freedom Seeker: Odyssey of the Pro Se Humpty-Dumpty Trial.  And if this wasn't enough, the arduous sage required at least one final volume to complete the story.   It's title is perhaps the most dramatic of all and so sadly descriptive of just where this whole tragic tale had brought the unfortunate soul through a life of pain, suffering, bad health and emotional/personal devastation: Betrayal and Oppression: Humpty-Dumpty Must You Die?  While Joe was writing these three books, two best-sellers hit the general market, The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean and Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy by Eric Hansen.  These are both intriguing and descriptive titles that have a general market appeal.  With the hopes of eventually publishing the above three books, Joe decided on a more intriguing and perhaps more marketable title for the trilogy: The Orchid Hell Chronicles
     Below you will find a preview of the three unpublished books.  Prepublication copies are available from the author for a modest cost covering the copying and binding.  You may make inquiries to:

<JoeWalker@SanDamiano.net>

WHERE YOU CAN REACH THE AUTHOR
     If would like to acquire copies for review or simply wish to have more information, you are encouraged to contact Dr. J. Lamah Walker at:

                     <SanDamianoOrchidMan@earthlink.net>