Marquez Knolls Author Releases Tenth Novel

By LILY TINOCO | Reporter

Marquez Author Edward Dreyfus released his tenth and latest novel, “It Ain’t Easy Being Green” on Saturday, February 5.

“Fair-skinned, wheelchair-bound Jeremy begins his first day of the fourth grade at his new school like all other days—wishing kids would stop staring at him and treating him like a freak,” according to a synopsis of the book. “He is shocked when he is befriended by a very tall, athletic Black boy who stands out almost as much as Jeremy does for his dark skin, height and energetic personality.”

Dreyfus shared that the novel portrays the same message he always hopes to deliver—both as an author and former psychologist—and lends a voice to the “silent folks.”

“I’m trying to give a voice, or to help kids understand that everyone deserves to be heard and seen for who they are, not for some stereotype that we hold,” Dreyfus said to the Palisadian-Post.

Dreyfus said “It Ain’t Easy Being Green” was written over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and is based on real people.

While a number of Dreyfus’ novels are geared towards adolescents, he said they generally stem from his experiences working as a clinical psychologist.

“In my practice … which I did for over 50 years before I retired, I worked with [primarily] adults and once in a while, I’d get a teenager,” Dreyfus said. “But these adults were damaged as kids, so that’s where the damage started.

“Their story and the experiences they have go back in the lives of many, many of the adults that I treated as a psychologist so I just put it in the framework [of a children’s story] but it’s really an adult story … I said, ‘One of these days when I get some time, I will write these stories to reach a larger audience.’ Low and behold, 50 years later, I got the time. So I started writing stories of real people, dealing with real issues, but put into a fictionalized structure.”

Drawn indoors due to the pandemic, Dreyfus said he misses collecting data from the world, from people who would prompt his story-writing.

“As a practitioner, I meet a lot of very, very interesting people and I’m always privileged to wander into their lives, they’re inviting me into places in their lives that they don’t invite very many people,” he explained. “That’s the privilege of being a therapist, you get to dig into people’s lives in ways that you ordinarily wouldn’t.

“You discover that everybody, every human being, has a light and a dark side. Nobody’s 100% good, no one’s 100% bad and everyone has a story to tell.”

Dreyfus shared that he is already working on his next novel which will be based around three unlikely friends, and he is excited to see where the story takes him.

“I enjoy writing so my writing is kind of … similar I find, to what I’ve been trained to do as a practitioner, to slowly evolve, and the story gradually emerges and I get a surprise … of where it’s taking me,” Dreyfus said to the Post. “Because sometimes I’ll end up going down a road that I never anticipated. I don’t write with the end in mind.”

“It Ain’t Easy Being Green,” and Dreyfus’ other books, are available for purchase via Amazon.