Me, My Family, Our Lives

David Gerard was born David Gerard Jurkiewicz in 1952 in St. Joseph, Missouri, the fifth child of seven to Anne and William Jurkiewicz. He did not turn out to be the best looking or smartest, or the most talented, most disciplined, or most successful of the seven. He did, however, turn out to be a writer, and because of that, the other six children have had to endure the notoriety and shame of being unfortunate caricatures in some of his stories. And now, once again, because of their hapless familial connection to a rather humdrum and tedious person who doesn''t know when to cease writing, their lives are once again exposed to the scrutiny of the public in this memoir. And not only does it adversely affect his siblings, but it also taints his wife, children and grandchildren, as well as innumerable first, second, third and subsequent cousins. Thank God that Gerard''s grandparents and aunts and uncles are gone and have been spared the knowledge of the dissemination of their lives. His grandparents were Ukrainian and Croatian immigrants, proud of their heritage and proud of their new country. They were hardworking people who believed stories were for children, the weak and disillusioned. Gerard''s aunts and uncles were first-generation Americans brought up with the same belief that work meant blisters on their hands and aches in their shoulders and backs, not cramps in their fingers from holding a pen or typing. If the dead can do the proverbial and turn over in their graves, then they have turned and are trying to escape down the corridors of Gerard''s authorial Purgatory. Gerard may claim that he is only trying to tell his and his family''s story for the sake of posterity, but posterities, like posteriors, are best left unexposed.