Pistils and Poetry

Rolf Margenau has written five novels and published two photography books The novels feature a main character named Wylie Cypher, first seen as a twenty year old college dropout who comes of age during the Korean War At forty, Wylie is a successful but burned out lawyer with a failing marriage He tries to find lost youth on a trek with his daughter through the high Andes Instead, he finds mayh Rolf Margenau has written five novels and published two photography books The novels feature a main character named Wylie Cypher, first seen as a twenty year old college dropout who comes of age during the Korean War At forty, Wylie is a successful but burned out lawyer with a failing marriage He tries to find lost youth on a trek with his daughter through the high Andes Instead, he finds mayhem, murder, a devastating civil war in Peru, and loses a toe.Retired, in his mid sixties, Wylie does battle with BIG AG as a Master Gardener He befriends a group of eco terrorists who help save the Monarch butterfly Then in a novel called National Parks, an aged Wylie lives in a dystopian future where Congress attempts to sell off our national parks to bail out a bankrupt country.Longevity, a fable about the results of a medical team s effort to prolong human life by 30 years, will be published early in 2019 In it Lucy Mendoza leads a team of scientists at the Prendergast Foundation who are testing an enzyme that might extend our lives by thirty years The federal government, a major pharmaceutical company, and a billionaire investor have no qualms about eliminating Lucy to ensure that project will fail Her former lover Grant Duran, an ex Marine special ops officer who s lost a hand and is now a molecular biologist, thwarts the first attempt on her life The novels featuring a younger Wylie are realistic with a dose of humor The books about older Wylie are solidly satirical Critics find them very funny, but meaningful and thought provoking.Rolf Margenau lives amid farmland in northern New Jersey with his first wife of over sixty years