“You can go through a lot in your life and still come out on the other side to find happiness,” local author and artist Richard Randall says. “It happens.”
It’s the central point of his new book “One Hundred Little Men,” a mixture of written word and art. The autobiographical tale was published by local nonprofit Breaking Rules Publishing and follows the story of Eli, “a regular guy that you’d see at any coffee shop” as he grieves the loss of a child, begins life anew and comes out at the age of 59.
“Life had not always been easy but [Eli] felt like [his] was no different than anyone else’s,” the book’s synopsis reads. “He was a family man, a church goer, and tried to do his best. Life changed and some of his childhood dreams became a reality… being happy doing what you love can be a strain for those around you who don’t understand.”
“Then the worst began to happen,” it continues, detailing that Eli’s daughter who lived across the country developed a debilitating illness. “As he did his best to help, his own life began to fall apart. He lost his job, his marriage and someone he loved most in life. At times, he’d escape to a local coffee shop to catch his breath in the midst of chaos… since he was an artist, he drew what he saw.”
The drawings, which complement the prose and were completed by Randall, gave the book its title. “I would take my pen and inks and I would go to coffee shop just to get a break, to have a little bit of time to myself,” Randall says. “I’d see someone and do a little cubist figure drawing of him. I’d just have an hour.”
Randall’s artwork was a release while he helped with his ailing daughter and dealt with his rapidly changing life. “There was just too much going on and I needed to have a little slot of time where I didn’t have to think,” he says. “They were all done in coffee shops across the country. If I was stuck in an airport somewhere, I’d find a little Starbucks, sit down and draw. I ended up with almost 200 of the drawings.”
The book’s artwork follows the timeline of Randall’s prose, with a transition in style and tone. He chose his subjects carefully, usually men who appeared to be “thinking about life or contemplating,” he says, “or maybe just looking at something on their phone and smiling. It was always a person that gave me a glimpse into their life without them knowing it… no one ever saw me.”
A friend encouraged Randall to write his story to accompany the artwork. “At the time I was thinking that since I had so many it’d be nice to put them in a book,” he says, “but I could never figure out how or why or what difference it made.”
He says he began writing his story at his friend’s insistence, also in coffee shops, though his trajectory remained unclear until he moved to St. Petersburg with his partner. It was there that he met the publisher for Breaking Rules Publishing, who was determined to help Randall share his story.
“I gave him the rundown on it and he goes, ‘I want that book, I want to publish that for you,’” he recalls. “It was never intended to be anything except a way for me to get peace, and then suddenly I’ve got a book. It shows how a simple thing like art can be a lifeline when you’re going through the worst the world can offer.”
Randall says one of those things is the death of a child, detailed in the book and something he struggled to overcome after his daughter committed suicide due to her illness. “After she passed away it was all the strength I had to keep caring about anything,” he recalls, “and then I realized that for so long I had been trying to take care of everything and everyone. I couldn’t do it anymore, so I packed a bag and I left with a suitcase. I was 59 at the time.”
It led to his fresh start, which he describes in life and in the book as “the best thing I’d ever done,” albeit “scary as hell.” In a new town, both he and the book’s Eli met his current partner. “Suddenly all of the bad things I had gone through, even the worst thing of losing a child, had given me the strength to figure out who I was and who I was going to be.”
Randall had come out very young, but shuttered his sexuality due to public perception in the 1970’s. It was then that he got involved with the “Jesus movement” and began living in a commune. “At the time that was the only choice,” he says. “This was the early 70’s and back then there wasn’t the freedom that we have now to express yourself or be who you want to be. There were no broad choices.”
At 59, in a new town and with a new outlook on life, Randall says it “just became obvious. When I found out that no one was going to judge me for liking guys or no one was going to be mad at me, then I realized I had the freedom to say ‘okay, I do like guys, I am gay; there’s nothing wrong with this.”
In the book, Randall notes that his first Pride parade after his journey of self-discovery was life-changing, something he says he included to illustrate that “you can be happy again.”
“There were thousands of people and they’re all cheering for you,” he recalls of the parade. “Of course they weren’t actually cheering for me, but they were cheering, they were happy, they were celebrating and I was in the middle of it.”
“I can’t even tell you what that feeling’s like,” he notes. “To go for years feeling like it was evil, that it was wrong and everything was terrible, to all of a sudden being celebrated… it was an indescribable feeling.”
Randall hopes that his book can possibly help others in their own journeys. “You have to acknowledge the bad things in your life,” he says. “You can’t hide from it and it’s not going to go away. You have to stand up to it, look it in the eye and keep going as much as you can.”
“People can start thinking that things are never going to change or that life is always going to be hell, but no, it doesn’t have to be that way,” Randall adds. “It can really turn around and change… I’m happier now than I’ve been in 30 years.”
Richard Randall’s “One Hundred Little Men” is out now from Breaking Rules Publishing. Copies are available via BreakingRulesWritingCompetitions.com or Amazon.
