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Karen Ingalls

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Novy's Son: The Selfish Genius Kindle Edition

by Karen Ingalls (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 44 ratings

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From his early childhood, Murray Clark sought love and acceptance from his father, who was raised as the bastard child of a famous artist. Murray struggled with jealousy toward his younger brothers, and he questioned the morals and values of people around him.
As an adult, Murray lived life his way, with years of lying, womanizing, and heavy drinking. Though married four times, did he ever find unconditional love? Would Murray’s high intelligence, his love for his two daughters, and his unique philosophy of life help him rise above his demons?

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

This book is a biography of my father who spent his life looking for unconditional love from his father. Unfortunately he chose unhealthy behaviors to try to gain this love not realizing that such actions only do the opposite. There are certainly some fictionalized accounts and characters, but I did use the real names of most people to provide authenticity.
Many years ago I read "Iron John" by Robert Bly. From that book I came to a greater understanding of my father's behaviors. The Iron John concept had not been passed down from his father; nor from his grandfather to his father.I worked as a nurse therapist for twenty years and counseled several men who had similar anti-social behaviors and were searching for love and respect from their fathers. It is my hope that the story about my father's life will help other men and the people in their lives.

About the Author

KAREN INGALLS is a retired registered nurse with a master's degree in human development. Karen challenges the reader to examine the issues of alcoholism, sexual addiction, and family dynamics. She is the author of the award winning book Outshine: An Ovarian Cancer Memoir. She speaks and teaches about health. Her weekly blog at www.OutshineOvarianCancer.blogspot.com offers insight into relationships, spirituality, and a variety of health issues.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01B1O2VQY
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 24, 2016
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 689 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 326 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #4,140,780 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,371,703 in Literature & Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #2,870,276 in Literature & Fiction (Books)

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4.4 44 ratings

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Karen Ingalls

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Karen Ingalls is the author of five books of which two are award-winning. She has published non-fiction, biographical novel, historical novel, biography, and short stories. She is a retired Registered Nurse with a Master's Degree in Human Development.

Her most recent book, Learning About Autism: One Mother's Journey of Discovery and Love tells the story of Carol Tucker and her adopted son, Justin. She is a recognized special education teacher, leader in the state of Florida, developer of curriculum and teaching methods, and co-founder and director of the first charter school for autism in Florida. Justin is a miracle who has astounded doctors and social workers with his achievements. He rose above his cerebral palsy, autism, and given up as hopeless.

Ms. Ingalls's non-fiction book, Outshine: An Ovarian Cancer Memoir, won first place at the 2012 Indie Excellence Book Awards in the category of women's health. It was a top finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Award of 2012 in the two categories of health and self-help. The book offers hope and inspiration to women and their families.

She wrote a series of twelve short stories in When I Rise: Tales, Truths, and Symbolic Trees.

Davida: Model & Mistress is about the love affair between her great-grandparents Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Davida. There are little-known facts about Davida except for her role as a model for many of the sculptor's famous works. It won the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award and the Apple Award for 2016.

Novy's Son, The Selfish Genius, is about Murray Clark, who sought love and acceptance from his father, who was the bastard child of the famous sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens. After reading Iron John by Robert Bly, Ms. Ingalls recognized what was missing in her father's life.

She is a blogger, public speaker, author of many articles, and advocate for gynecologic cancer awareness and fundraiser for research. In her spare time, she loves to read and play golf. All proceeds from the book sales go to gynecolotgic cancer research.

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4.4 out of 5

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Soooz Burke

Riveting and memorable.

Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2016

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I love reading, and finding an author I've never read before is always a time of excitement and anticipation.

It has been a long time since I've become so immersed in a book. The total commitment that Author Karen Ingalls has to her characters shines through immediately. The connection is a strong one, and this author has lovingly attended to detail.

I've read other reviews, and I concur that the central character of Murray is easy to loathe, his behavior towards others is utterly selfish, and his inability to show loyalty to anyone or anything makes him easy to despise. However, I also found that despite all of his unrecognized, sociopathic lack of conscience, despite the utter selfishness and disregard for the needs of his family there is something oddly comforting about the hard, cold reality of Murray.

There are people just like Murray, people you may well recognize as you read, who fail to react to the very crisis they have themselves created; stumbling forward without regret; living without remorse as if everyone elses life exists purely to satisfy their own narcissistic emotional blindness.

As the decades unfurl this author invites you to witness the train wreck approaching, as Murray selfishly burns out whoever dares to love him. The scattered remains of his family nurse their collective wounds and watch on helplessly as he lurches from one addiction to the next. Murray had no idea how to feel compassion for others. He was far too busy imagining how people were scheming against him. His every failure shrugged off with a casual disregard for the scattered hearts damaged by his lack of one.

The time frames are so clearly visible; the social mores and edicts of each decade unfolding in a wonderful kaleidoscope of sound and color. You are taken to that time, that place and the author ensures that the journey is memorable.

This book is more than just a brief journey into the life of an ultimately selfish and self-destructive man. It is an exposure of raw nerve endings; it lays the human heart and soul on the line and you the reader watch as the predators attack. I found it to be riveting and quite unforgettable.

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Joy Nwosu Lo-Bamijoko

a good family, although he defied every rule

Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2017

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What a story! Murray, aka Michael, was a character in this story. He had everything going for him, brains, even though he refused to apply it, a good family, although he defied every rule, he lived his own way, as he prided himself to say.

There is nothing he did not do, to damage himself, and he was unrepentant until the end. I know people like him who believed they are better than everyone, and so, they treat everyone around them with spite and contempt. I could not believe the horrible life he chose to live, a life he seemed to relish. I could not believe his denial of God. But I believe that those who deny the existence of God do so to justified that their bad deeds will go unpunished.

I was very tense reading the litany of his badness, and wondering why God allows the bad to live so long. It must be because of the proverbial saying that God gives the bad a long rope to allow them to repent or go to hell in the end without any remorse if they don’t repent.

This is a great story written with passion and such wonderful details. Although I enjoyed this story very much, I must point out the problem I had with the editing that lowered my rating from five to four stars. Despite this, it remains a powerful story.

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Dawn Huffaker

What a Ride!

Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2015

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Matthew Collins was his own man, and his own worst enemy. At a very young age, he was sent to live with Aunt Hannah and Uncle Lucas when his mother became pregnant with the next child. This was very destructive to his psyche. He felt that his parents no longer wanted him, and that he might be the cause for why his mother was so frail.

As each brother was born, Matthew felt more and more distant from his parents. He would have to spend time away until his mother regained her strength. While she always loved him, he had put up a wall between them that kept them from reconnecting. His father was never close to him, but he tried to get his attention either for good or bad, anyway.

When he grew older, Matthew realized that he was from a very talented and elite family. Whenever he did wrong, his parents would become very frustrated with him and tell him of his famous grandfather. The boy wanted to make his parents proud of him. Matthew would try to get better grades, and pay more attention in class. He was going to make something of himself.

While he meant well, nothing ever worked out as an adult. He would backslide. Make a boss angry. Lose a job. Get a divorce. Get married again. Backslide. Over and over again, Matthew tried to get it right.

In the end, he was his own worst enemy. He had no one to blame but himself. Parents never realize the traumas children go through. They start to believe that they are cursed, and life loses its luster. Matthew could have been anything he wanted to be, but he didn’t have the solid footing a happy childhood when things got tough.

Karen Ingalls has written an incredible novel. It is filled with very believable characters and settings. Come and relive Matthew’s life through the pages of Novy’s Son.

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Stuart Kenyon

An absorbing treat

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 2, 2016

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The fascinating Novy's Son is a remarkable twist on the tried and tested coming of age formula. What sets it apart from a thousand other such tales was the central figure, Matthew Collins. The author has resisted the hackneyed trope of a wholly-good protagonist, creating a rounded, believable person with all the failings of a real human being.

The rest of the cast are shallow in comparison, but this is apt when one considers the world view of our anti-hero. Selfish almost to the point of personality-disorder, Collins is a self-destructive wastrel with few redeeming qualities, and is seemingly-intent on corrupting anything worthy in his life. Nevertheless, thanks to the author's skill, I still sympathised with the fool at the heart of the tale.

Refreshingly, the book makes no apology for its main character. Instead, the moral of the story is delivered by way of the consequences of Collins's actions; he deserves to suffer, so suffer he does.

A compelling read, and highly-recommended.

Peaceseeker

His life was full of self and lust and lies

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 3, 2018

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This is a long and painfully revealing story about the author’s father. He saw himself as “someone who was betrayed, who was never understood nor appreciated, but who is a genius of aristocratic blood”. His behaviour throughout his ninety-five years, however, deservedly earned him his reputation as “a ladies’ man, a curmudgeon, a son of a bitch, and an elitist.” It is a tough read.
Murray Clark, or as he later re-named himself to escape his debtors, Michael St Germain, was a selfish, self-centred, egotistical, alcoholic, sex-addicted sociopath. He continually trashed the opportunities presented to him while exploiting the generosity and patience of his parents and of the many women who gave him chance after chance. He let his two daughters down unforgivably, and barely appreciated their later kindness and forgiveness (particularly the efforts of his younger daughter, Karen), and always blamed others for his screw-ups.
Having lived through it, and perhaps in an attempt to say “Goodbye To All That” the author tells her father’s story in the first person from his point of view. It therefore unfolds as autobiography. Some moments must have been particularly painful to write about. “I was now seeing changes in Joan, who was more withdrawn, which caused me concern. Yet my time with Grace was more important. I simply no longer asked the girls any questions, as I did not want my fears confirmed that they were being mistreated … Part of me did not want to know what happened in Helen’s house to cause Karen so much distress. It might mean I would have to deal with it.”
The style is homespun, lifted and contrasted at the end of each chapter by the literary prose of Herman Melville. I couldn’t in every case determine the relevance of the end paragraphs to the events of the chapter, though I enjoyed each extract. In my e-version, the Melville paragraphs weren’t highlighted by quotation marks (though the author was always acknowledged). I think a paperback version of the book (with drop caps, the author’s name at the bottom of each page, words split by hyphens and so on) had been uploaded into the Kindle Store, resulting in a messy e-version, though it was always possible for a diligent reader infused with goodwill to navigate the text. My version needed a good, professional edit.
Murray does provide the reader with some valuable insights: his challenging of theology for example, and of social attitudes regarding sexual urges in adolescence. He asks some important questions. “With so many events and players in the course of history, is only one group of people the enslaved, the abused, the innocent ones? Is history not full of unfairness and cruelty?” There are also moments of refreshing honesty when he acknowledges his shortcomings. “I was too small for football, not fast enough for track, and couldn’t throw or hit well enough for baseball.” “It was not until years later I realized Richard just wanted to be with me and be like me. Actually, he turned out to be a better man than me.”
Did the author put those words into his mouth because he said them or because they were true? I asked myself that question many times. I thought this was a very brave book, and I do hope writing it brought the author some closure.

Jean. Shorney

A Flawed Protagonist

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 6, 2016

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Anti hero Matthew Collins takes us through his life as a child until his death at age 94. Rough riding through the Sixties and Seventies. Periods of time I can relate to.You love him. Or you hate him. Either way his story is absorbing. I would definitely recommend this book.

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Novy's Son: The Selfish Genius Kindle Edition

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Karen Ingalls

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