The Narcissism of Small Differences is Dennis Dorgan’s debut novel. He recently retired from a lifetime of working with private and government agencies that took on the heart-breaking issues confronting low-income persons in our country: domestic violence, homelessness, hunger, unemployment and systemic racism. So, instead of writing the Great American Novel, he wrote a carload of funding proposals and similar documents. They steered millions of dollars to legal aid and other organizations that help low-income families and communities. It was important work.
He claims that his interest in politics, history, law enforcement, criminal gangs, dark matter, Ojibwe culture, the subconscious mind, dreams, psychopaths, the many forms of narcissism, and the City of St. Paul’s criminal-friendly past, all came together in a dream that led him to write this novel.
He lives happily on the shores of one of Minnesota’s ten-thousand lakes with his wife, Debra, dog, Finnegan, and an invisible water sprite that keeps plugging new characters into his psyche.