#atozchallenge: C is for Couples

Marriages are falling apart all over 2014: A Year In Stories. Love's got its head on the chopping block. But you know what they say: hope dies last, if it dies at all.

Meet the couples of the 2014 project.

There's Madge, who starts out January by asking her BFF Gina to work her connections (she's Italian, she's from Jersey) and find her a hit man to off her husband, Franklin Lancaster Cabot III. He goes by Frank (the bastard).

La Ronde / Madge & Gina, by Townsend Walker
2014 January Vol. 1

Gina gets offended at the racist remark, but it turns out she might know someone after all. Will Madge be free of her once-beloved Frank? Will she get away with it in order to get Frank's much-beloved money? Would you have your abusive spouse murdered?

(More about Townsend's La Ronde series here.)

There's Bipolar Ralph and his girlfriend Chloe. Soon-to-be-ex, he thinks, when she finds out about the bipolar thing. That won't take long, Chloe being a psych nurse and all. But Chloe has been keeping something from Ralph, too: she had a bipolar dad. He committed suicide when she was twelve.

"Seeing me in a more subdued state of mind changed Chloe's view of me and she's decided to stick around. She thinks my cycling mood swings are like her father's and it is her job to save my life."

The Crash, by Gloria Garfunkel, 2014 March Vol. 3

(Got to know more? I interviewed Gloria here.)

Stephen and Anna met at a writers' group. According to their creator (and, maybe, their sometimes-alter-ego) Stephen V. Ramey, "It was not love at first sight, but rather a gradual bonding through word, image, story, and the promise to work together toward their common goal of publication."

In the February story, Living Dead, Stephen says it was Anne that found him:

"I glimpsed your soul in that story," she told me years later. "I knew you were the one."Living Dead, by Stephen V. Ramey, 2014 February Vol. 2

Sounds beautiful. Ideal, even. So why is Stephen eyeing his hippy-gypsy neighbor--and best friend's wife--Rose?

Living Dead, by Stephen V. Ramey
2014 February Vol. 2

(More about Stephen the author and Stephen the character in this interview)

And what about Mark and Angela Hamilton, who live more apart than together (he's a professional baseball player), to the extent that Mark has come to feel like a stranger in his house. Michael Webb, the author, says that "they met in college, where she was a cheerleader and pre-law student, and he studied literature and played baseball. He was drafted relatively high, and after one season in the minors they married. They have two kids, Dylan and Madison." And these two kids look at their dad like a stranger, too. How long can love and loyalty hold out? (More on this shaky couple for L day, Love The Way You Lie, and O day, One-Night Stands.)

(Hooked on Michael's story cycle? Read more here.)

No story is complete without a dog. For sympathy, for tension, for expository dialogue, for plain old companionship: humans, fictional or not, need dogs. Come back tomorrow to meet 

the Dogs of The 2014: A Year In Stories Project. 

From leg-humping Chihuahuas to an Akita-Shepherd-Ridgeback mix 

(best guess) that "wouldn't hurt a fly."

~ * ~ 

April is all about discovery. Your next favorite blog is waiting to be found

somewhere in the list of A-to-Z-ers!