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To get back into the good graces of his publisher and escape his threadbare existence as an old-school poet living in the ghetto of a New Jersey city, Preston Whitcomb agrees to mentor a young street-wise slam poet, Claude Carolina, who has the potential to rise to the top of the professional poetry world in nearby New York City. Preston then persuades his beautiful and successful ex-wife, Amanda Larson, to tutor Claude in the art of writing traditional poetry at the college where she teaches, but when Claude begins to fall in love with her, Preston has no choice but to walk the fine line between his exploitation of black genius and his conscious struggle for racial harmony and social equality.

Mother: A Memoir follows the turbulent relationship between the author's mentally ill Pakistani mother and the author himself who carries the same mental illness. From living together in the slums of New York City's Lower East Side in the 1980s through the author's education in Connecticut and the several hospitalizations he has to confront, Mother is a powerful and unforgettable read that tries to be as honest as possible in portraying what ought to be a loving relationship between a mother and her son but strays far from that ideal into the areas of abuse, poverty, and crushing mental illness. "A brutally honest book about growing up with-and around-mental illness. This should be required reading for anyone who seeks to understand its impact on families." -Rone Shavers, Co-Editor, Paper Empire: William Gaddis and the World System "Havel rips the blinds off of family destiny, a memoir of thwarted love and tragedy. He writes as he walks, strolling, back through layers of time to the conclusive moment at the core of everything. Smoke from an ever-present fire leaks from page to page. The reader will never see-or smoke-cigarettes in quite the same way again." -Allen Parmenter, Freelance Writer "A well-written and very honest story of the relationship between mother and son. He puts you into the story, explaining the emotions and the struggles of mental illness." -Patti Mutterer, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, Albany County Mental Health

Harvey Havel's Blog, 2005 - 2010: A Collection of Essays on Politics, Literature, War, and Sex

After being accused of raping the Commanders daughter, Ekaja is thrown out of the house and is forced to leave. He goes to New York where he discovers a Jewish painter who needs his help. Together, they make an important contribution to the New York artists' scene for those who have mental disabilities.

As a fundraiser for Congressman William T. Briarwood's re-election campaign, Simon Sample knows that he is being groomed by the forces of New York City's wealthy and political elite to succeed Briarwood as the next conservative candidate for the 14th district. But when Simon's strong and stubborn integrity prevents him from turning a blind eye to bribery, his political future as well as his livelihood is threatened by the very people who support him.

In Book Two of The Orphan of Mecca trilogy, Amina Mitra has no choice but to abandon her newborn child to the Great Mosque of Mecca, Islam's holiest place. The child is then taken to an orphanage by the religious police (mutawaffs) and stays there until he is of good enough age to live on his own. The orphan, Ekaja, finds work in a Meccan tourist bazaar that is well known for its wealthy international travelers and global corporate visitors. There, he meets an American who wants Ekaja to work for him. But this is not ordinary work. The American wants to turn him into a spy for the Central Intelligence agency. Ekaja then must choose between loyalty to the CIA and loyalty to his own people regardless of how perverted their view of Islam has become.

Droogan McPhee is the son of a wealthy entrepreneur who owns several liquor stores throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts. His step-mother is roughly Droogan’s same age. Together they plot to kill his wealthy father for the inheritance money, until Droogan shoots his step-mother instead by mistake. What follows is an odyssey along the New York Thruway, as the police will stop everything to make sure that the fleeing Droogan is captured and brought to justice.

"Meet Charlie Zero, an unassuming man whose chief focus lies in chasing a reality which doesn’t exist. Follow the lengthy machinations of his mind, and his dichotomous internal dialogue, which seethes with unrest. If there were laws in place for what the content of a consciousness holds, they might very well arrest, and throw away the key on Charlie Zero, for his perception on women, love and success are skewed to such an extent that at times one might conclude the character is delusional. However, while this character may be easily judged, one can also feel Charlie’s torment. At times Havel’s character sees his own suffering with pristine clarity. He longs for, "These desires to be pulled like spools of spaghetti from his mind--a hand that tugs out the soft, diseased tendrils of desire that had warped him so thoroughly,” and understand the particular slant with which he perceives his world, the lens with which he views women and love and success, for indeed they mirror certain components and underlying messages from the society in which we live. After all, in the end Charlie wants what most of us want: Success, happiness and love. Charlie Zero is an unsettling story, a richly textured food for thought book, with images close enough to touch, and surprisingly, laugh out loud moments.” --Bonnie Law, Author of On the Edge of a Rainbow "Charlie Zero is not so much a zero as he is a man whose of lack self-esteem and socially isolated perceptions govern his quest for fulfillment, camaraderie and love. His exploits read at times like a victim of the modern world's materialism, money, and sex. There is rejection of a man who is certainly unusual but not unique. This is a tale that begs a second glance because, whereas, Charlie can be every man faced with the harsh demands of a fitting into a society that often derides the dreamer and rewards the schemer, Charlie does try, often with disastrous results. Charlie is not just jaded in his observations, he approaches epiphany, yet even that seems out of reach, as his real motivation is finding love and redemption. This tale is complex, but revealing and despite challenging at times, a story about a man who is flawed, but fundamentally human. I recommend it for the sheer adventure one takes through Charlie Zero's perceptions and trials.” --Robert Milby, Hudson Valley, New York, Poet and Author of Ophelia's Offspring, (Foothills Publishing, 2007)

A non-fiction political essay about the application of the absolutes of love, as pondered in the philosophies of Plato, and its application by leaders, such as Gandhi, MLK Jr., and Einstein on turbulent and vitriolic political conditions, such the extreme polarization of political ideology in the United States as of 2019.