“Sure, you could think it was because he was twice my age or because he was intellectually handicapped, but then I began to think, was it because he was Black? It really hit me, and they became major themes in the book.”

“I woke up from this dream wondering why that was,” Lebeau says, adding that the dream forced him to rethink how people often view those who are different. He recalled how his father would never let young Brian meet alone with the man - who at the time was in his early 20s and had a baseball card collection that Brian envied - despite him living right across the street. One of those early memories - “the critical one that set things in motion,” as he puts it - was of an older, intellectually challenged friend Lebeau had when he was in middle school in Massachusetts. Still, as tangential as he may be at times, Lebeau always manages to circle back to the story he’s trying to tell: The one where, a little over four years ago, he woke up in a cold sweat, his mind flooded with disturbing memories from his childhood in Fall River, Mass.

Case in point: A simple question about the memories that inspired his debut crime thriller, “A Disturbing Nature,” and the Ramona resident will wax poetic about everything from vintage baseball cards to systemic racism. Brian Lebeau is a natural storyteller, albeit one who’s highly distractible.

A Disturbing Nature by Brian Lebeau