The author

Gerhard Maroscher worked in industry for 34 years as a mechanical engineer, in addition to holding some management positions. Prior to that, he served in the US Army and was in Vietnam in a non-combat assignment.

Upon early retirement at the age of 59 he began a second career as a high school German teacher, where he discovered that he loved teaching. He calls this career change as being “occupationally reborn”.

Knowing the importance of reading as part of learning of a foreign language, he assigned his students whatever was available. That material proved to be rather unsatisfying because students hated reading it, and were bored. In Gerhard’s words, “reading from the available German reading material was about as much fun as pulling teeth.”

In an attempt to encourage his students, Gerhard started writing quirky short stories of his own. The students stopped complaining and read more often, which improved the rate of their language acquisition.

Gerhard’s wife Ruth read all of the stories before the students saw them. She began to encourage him to publish them, since she thought they were appealing and might be useful to other classes and teachers. Since Gerhard always does what his wife says, he did indeed publish the German short stories in the form of easy readers, available on www.germanreaders.com. Language teachers and independent adult readers from the USA and other countries continue to purchase the readers.

The book

Upon retirement from the public school system Gerhard began teaching adults. He started to seriously consider writing a book about the history of his family. The family history is one of danger, fear, loss, courage, near starvation, perseverance, and miraculous survival.

Gerhard had been collecting information and thinking about this book for decades. He listened to his parents talk about their experiences and kept a file of conversations and voice recordings.

That file, combined with the treasure-trove of documents his parents saved, enabled him to write this amazing story of his family that is both emotionally engaging and historically accurate.

The book has been printed and is available for purchasing. Get your copy with the Buy Now button below:

	Why Can't Somebody Just Die Around Here? by Gerhard Maroscher, 6in x 9in, 344 pages, $17.99
	You can pay with a credit card. You do not have to have a PayPal account. Look for the other options on the right hand side of the next screen. If you want more than one copy you will have the opportunity to change the quantity on the next screen. Media Mail postage is $3.99 per book. Sales tax will be added to orders for Ohio residents. For the moment international orders are being handled directly with Gerhard.
	Orders will ship within 1-3 days via USPS Media Mail, which takes 2-9 days to arrive.

The book: behind the scenes

Here are some photos and anecdotes about my experience writing Why Can’t Somebody Just Die Around Here.

My workspace

Ruth secretly took this picture while I was busy writing my book. I do my writing while standing up.

I have a very high-technology expensive stand-up desk: it consists of a cardboard box on top of the glass table in the family room upon which I place my laptop.

More hours than I care to think about were spent standing at the laptop writing the story of my family.

Research trip to Germany

In October of last year I traveled to Germany to do some research for the book. The trip proved to be very useful.

I visited many of the places my family had been, and was able to meet family members and other people that added valuable content to my story.