A University of Delaware professor and Rehoboth Beach resident has his first published novel on store shelves.
Ethan Joella’s “A Little Hope” is set in an imaginary Connecticut town called Wharton and explores the intertwining lives of a dozen or so neighbors confronting life’s complexities, including lost love, illness and betrayal.
“The main characters it follows are this married couple -Freddie and Greg Tyler," Joella said. "And Greg has just been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, which is a deadly form of cancer of the plasma cells. And Freddie is dealing with that and supporting her husband. And she’s thinking about her own dreams and her losses and trying to be there for him.”
Joella explains why he decided to tackle such heavy subjects.
“I like sad stuff," Joella said. "I mean give me a good Adele song or something like that. I feel like there’s so much truth and there’s so much reality in sadness sometimes; I think that we shy away from that and we want to brush things under the rug.”
But Joella says believe it or not - he is an optimist - but has always been able to clearly see the other side. He feels all everybody really wants is some ounce of kindness and his book reflects this.
Joella has already started on his second novel, which is expected to be out later this year.
Delaware Public Media' s arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
