About John

About the Author...

John Stover was born in Brockton, Mass on June 1, 1951, the fourth child of seven.

It was in Brockton, Mass. , that Mr. Stover spent his youth at his father's hotel, The West Elm Hotel, where he observed men from the Brockton VA Hospital. Much of Mr. Stover's writing is culled from these dysfunctional men. As a child, Mr. Stover observed several unexpected, sudden and violent deaths.

As a youth of fifteen, Mr. Stover was involved in a bizarre accident that took the life of his elderly neighbor. He steadfastly maintains his innocence.

The author attended Boston University and the University of California at Los Angeles, where he majored in English literature and writing. Mr. Stover began his college career as a pre-med major. He was forced to leave the university after waking up restrained in a straitjacket, the result of a bad LSD trip. The author was picked up running naked through the streets of Boston on Christmas Eve. That episode pretty much ended any thoughts of an academic or medical career.

In 1974, Mr. Stover spent a year hitch-hiking around the south, working at various odd jobs, hopping freight cars, guessing astrological signs for money and working for the local moonshiners and drug dealers. In six months Mr. Stover logged over 20,000 miles on his thumb, sleeping under bridges, accepting the hospitality of strangers and living by his wits. Today, this living situation would be described as homeless. In 1973, it was merely living “On the Road.”

In 1975 Mr. Stover moved to Nantucket Island where he worked for the Nantucket Historical Association. He lectured the public on early American whaling, becoming an expert on scrimshaw and Herman Melville. Later he worked at Nantucket Cottage Hospital, where he continued his medical training while driving an ambulance and attending to the critically ill and elderly.

In 1976, Mr. Stover moved to California where he worked as a personal assistant to Edwin W. Pauley, Chairman of the Board of Regents, for the Universities of California and former Treasurer of the Democratic Party. The author also worked at several of the local area hospitals, UCLA Medical Center and St. John's Hospital, among others. Mr. Stover stayed four years with Edwin W. Pauley, spending summers with the Pauleys on Cocnut Island, thei Pauley's private Island in Hawaii. Some of the guests who spent time on Coconut Island were Jerry Brown, Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Meredith Willson, composer of “The Music Man.” The author also worked for several foreign ambassadors as well as for the Academy Award winning director Lewis Milestone.

In 1984, Mr. Stover entered the world of fashion, working for several international clothing companies, winning several awards and achieving considerable success and acclaim. In 1989, he opened his own concern, City Garment Finishers, a garment manufacturing company, which employed as many as fifty workers.

After a personal crisis in 1998, Mr. Stover sold everything he owned to concentrate on his first love, writing. In the past fifteen years, Mr. Stover has written one memoir and sevennovels. His personal Odyssey, “The Road Runner” is his first book. It was written in six weeks.

The author's second book, Common Cents, is a Civil War novel that mirrors the homeless situation of modern America. “Common Cents” is a futuristic tale concerning a possible second Civil War; paralleling the American Civil War and its issues of slavery and bondage with the conditions of the homeless that exist today in modern America. The author considers the homeless problem in this country a National disgrace.

In-Sight, the author's third book is a new-age, science fiction story about a dysfunctional time-traveler who is able to journey in and out of his own life, both past and present. This time-trekker is also able to “jump” into distant ancestry; descendents in the past and heirs to the future.

The author has taken the popular concept of time traveling and added his own unique vision of cross-addiction, genealogical molding and familial balance. The reader will long remember the characters that weave in and out of time during the time-traveler's journey.

A Zen-type approach to destiny, a Christian sensitivity towards forgiveness and a futuristic bent regarding time and space, combine to bring the reader headlong into an absorbing and harrowing tale of time-twists and family developments that will both haunt and fascinate.

The Men's Group is the author's sexual oeuvre. Taking personal experience from a men's discussion group, the author relates a hilarious tale of a sexually a compulsive man, desperately seeking help for his problem. When the author joined the group, it consisted of four heterosexual men and two gay men. When the author left the group it was comprised of two straight men and four gay men. They were the same men. Mr. Stover was one of the straight men. The other men in the group see the protagonist's exploits as heroic, never seeing the actual damage being done by his constant pursuit of women. The colorful characters include the six men of the group, each seeking their own sexual compass as well as (among others) a teen-age hermaphrodite, an older woman who seduces the young man, a former girlfriend of his fathers, a stunning heiress who confuses pain with love, a college professor and a double amputee.

In 1999, the author created a line of clothing for Playboy Enterprises. He toured the country with seven Centerfolds. What he discovered was that beauty really is only skin deep. In fact, it seldoms runs that deep. He was at the Playboy Mansion for the Millennium New Year's party. The Men's Group is the author's way of dealing with this hedonistic part of his life.

The Love Rescue Me Trilogy are the author's sixth, seventh and eighth books. On Labor Day 2008, John was involved in a devastating surfing accident. He was briefly paralyzed and laid up for four months. Unable to work, the author lost his house, business, cars, girlfriend, twenty years of sobriety and the respect of his friends and family. He took his first drink in twenty years and ended up on the steps of the Los Angeles Mission, in downtown Los Angeles. Later he moved on to The Midnight Mission, where he completed the one year program. The Love Rescue Me Trilogy is a love story for our times and is set largely in downtown Los Angeles's Skid Row. The characters and plot were largely taken from these harrowing experiences.

The Love Rescue Me Trilogy consists of Book One, Love Hurts, Book Two Love Scars and the closing volume, Book Three, Love Is All You Need. Descriptions of all three books can be found on this site under the "Books" page.

Mr. Stover has one child, a daughter, Katy. He was very active in raising his child. Katy Stover contributed the cover for The Road Runner, his first book. Katy Stover graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in June 2011 with highest honors. From there she went to Ballou High School, an inner city school in Washington DC. Katy successfully qualified for the Bill Gate’s sponsored Teach for America. She teaches impoverished and challenged high school kids, grades 9 and 10. Just carrying on with a Stover family tradition. Mr. Stover is once again clean and sober, single and lives in a loft in downtown Los Angeles, Ca.

The author can be reached at JStover6151@aol.com https://www.facebook.com/jstover6151

John appeared for the first time in seven years at his hometown of Brockton, Ma. The reading / signing was held at Oaks Ames Memorial Hall in N. Easton, Mass. John read from his newest book Love Rescue Me, as well as selected exerpts from other books.

Love Rescue Me was written as a direct result of the events that occurered following a debilitating accident when John broke his neck almost five years ago. John was briefly paralyzed and laid up for four months. In that time John lost his house, business, cars and dog. This book is a refelction of that experience and the subsequent fallout.

Love Rescue Me is a Love story, partially set in a downtown LA Mission. The story comes from John's personal experience. Don't miss this free event.

The reading was held Friday, July 26, 2013 from 6-8 pm. Thanks to those who came out and joined us.

Oaks Ames Memorial Hall

Oakes Ames Memorial Hall, North Easton, MA 02356 A truly unique and intimate setting for this event. Designed by world-renowned architect H.H. Richardson in the late 1800s, the Hall is a National Historic Landmark and a favorite of photographers.

Approached by terraced steps set into natural surroundings designed by famed landscape architect F.L. Olmsted, the Hall is a dramatic presence in the village of North Easton. The town itself reflects the days of yesteryear, with rolling pastures, open spaces and a treasure trove of period architecture. The Oakes Ames Memorial Hall is conveniently located mid-way between Boston and Providence.

http://www.oakesameshall.org/

The Love Rescue Me Trilogy. Love Hurts, Love Scars,

and Love is All You Need.

“In-Sight,” the author’s third book is a new-age, science fiction story about a dysfunctional time-traveler who is able to journey in and out of his own life, both past and present. The time-trekker is also able to“jump” into distant ancestry; descendents in the past and heirs to the future.

In the opening paragraph, the lead character learns that his mother has committed suicide. But in her leaving, she has also left him the keys to an ancient family secret…. The ability to time travel.

In a series of letters, Paul Stone’s mother leaves him the key to go back into his own life. He sees the past as it really was, not as he remembers it. The time traveler is able to occupy his own body at pivotal times in his development. He is able only to observe, his future body cannot be seen or heard, hence the title; In-Sight. On one occasion the time traveler will go forward and see himself as an old man. On other trips he is able to “jump” into future or past descendents. Paul Stone is able to journey back to past ages and occupy distant, earlier relatives; descendents who carry the same genetic make-up. Upon his return, Paul realizes that unless active change is sought, families do not alter behavior, sometimes for hundreds even thousands of years. It is more than hair and eye color that is passed down in families. Paul Stone is the newest in a long line of time travelers that includes Michel de Nostredame, H.G. Wells and Taylor Caldwell, all descendents and all time travelers in their own time.

Paul falsely believes he can use this new knowledge to go back and change the past, thusly averting his mother’s untimely demise. Instead he learns that the past cannot be changed but the future is adjustable, by taking steps in the present. He learns to forgive his mother for her transgression and he learns to accept the family that he has been born into.

Paul Stone is from a dysfunctional family; alcoholism, rage and sexual dysfunction being just a few of the family’s hidden secrets. As the time traveler goes back and occupies his body at various periods of his childhood, he sees his father as the man he truly was, not evil at all, but human. A man with no prior experience at being a father. He views his mother as a woman he never really knew, and begins to understand why suicide would seem a viable option. He sees his abusive brother as a victim of a dysfunctional family and learns what will make him the predator he becomes. The older brother eventually dies in a fiery car crash, witnessed by the time traveler on one horrific journey. The traveler learns to forgive himself for the brother’s accident, having incorrectly assuming he was the cause of his death. In going back and seeing the accident as it really was, he realizes that it was the older brother’s demons that drove him towards his own death.

On one journey, the time traveler goes forward, only to find no host body to occupy. He is no more than a formless soul floating in space. He realizes upon his return that the reason we have never been visited by time travelers from the future is because there is no future. We will self-destruct before we reach that technology.

On another journey into the distant past, Paul Stone meets Jesus Christ Himself, and learns a lesson in forgiveness. Jesus speaks to the time traveler and tells him that his mother is with God now and Paul must forgive his mother, as God surely has.

The Love Rescue Me Trilogy are John's first books in five years. Love Hurts, Love Scars and Love Is All You Need were all written at the Los Angeles Public Libraries, two hours at a time, as John was recoving from a debilitating accident while a resident at Los Angeles's Midnight Mission.

For further information, see the Love Rescue Me pages on this site