Strictly a Loner Free online reading

We met Earl in 1990; we parted seven years later. So many little events had to fall into place before we met him that it seemed decreed above for him to become "our" Earl. He'd just chuckle to hear that, though. "Those jokers," he'd say about us. "They knew I was strictly a loner." What we also knew was his biggest secret.

In this often humorous, true story, two homeowners go head-to-head with their tenant Earl, a quiet old loner and military retiree from the South. Sometimes just an amusing curmudgeon, Earl confounds them with his obsessive hoarding and miserly habits. Always dignified, nonetheless he retained an air of secrecy about his past, keeping his distance from the people who saw him every day along the streets of Plattsburgh, a small city nestled above the Adirondacks.

Truly, he was a man that everyone saw and no one really knew. With the drama, suspense, and poignancy only a true story can evoke, Strictly a Loner also serves as a vehicle to examine society's attitudes toward money, family, mental illness, and aging.