Jonathan Marcus

I grew up in Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and Florida.  In every new town, our family always landed at the intersection of love and confusion.

In elementary school, I began work in the family business: thinking about things, everything, trying to figure it all out, even stuff that Judaism doesn’t think about, and that’s saying something.

To hasten mastery of the family business, I spent twenty years in a semi-secret group as the right-hand man for the group’s charismatic, brilliant and shadowy leader.  Which is what the memoir is mainly about.  That plus sex and my grandfather.  It’ll make more sense when you read it.

My career path reflects the attempt-the-impossible spirit at the hub of the whirl with the group.  Despite a Humanities degree from Emory University, I’ve been a short order cook, welder, ranch hand, awning entrepreneur, world traveler, performer, photographer, and self-taught carpenter–which bloomed into designing and building homes in the urban pioneer neighborhoods of downtown Atlanta.  I’ve always been a writer.

In 2013, I discovered Richmond.  The sign on the door of the Virginia Museum of Fine Art read “Open every day.  Admission free.”  A whitewater river coursed through downtown, bounded by miles of walking neighborhoods.  I met a real estate agent who is a published memoirist.  Forty-three days later I moved into the third house on her list.

In Richmond I worked for a non-profit helping elderly homeowners before becoming a full time author.  Plus I became president of the neighborhood association, helped to form a coalition around a proposed city project, and joined the Richmond chapter of the NAACP.  This intersection is more love and less confusion.

I am still working in the family business, thinking about things, everything, trying to figure it all out.  And writing about it.

The Writer at Work.

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