bookblog

PARADISE, FOUND, LOST AND REFOUND

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 23:37:28 +0100

THE DESPERATE CYCLE (Savant 2012) is Tony Tame's second dramatic novel of Jamaica, but the theme is not confined to Jamaican society. It examines the ways in which succeeding generations of people in what is loosely called "third world countries" handle, with courage, humor and resilience, the mountain of odds which history stacks against them.

This book does not treat any one participant in this "cycle" of inequality with particular distemper or sympathy. All the characters, from shifty politicians, to the harsh men of the law, to those who bear the ultimate pressure from their position at the bottom of the pile share elements of inevitability within their personalities. The reader is thus left to make his or her own decision about what made them the way they are, and, how, if they do, they will change in the future.

THE DESPERATE CYCLE traces three generations of a family who must survive with no inherited advantage. They confront and battle with environmental, social and economic forces the scope of which are so great that it is all they can do to work out survival techniques, and do it with ingenuity and often employing unusual "island" solutions and sometimes abject illegal behavior to avoid admitting defeat.

On another level, the novel constantly and subtly contrasts the absolute beauty of the island of Jamaica with the harsh reality of what it means to live in a physical Garden of Eden while dealing with the facts of human life in a paradise lost.

Sincerely,
Tony Tame
Author of
THE VILLAGE CURTAIN - A JAMAICA COLLECTION (Savant 2009)
THE DESPERATE CYCLE - A NOVEL FROM JAMAICA (Savant 2012)

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL?

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 19:18:17 +0100

LIGHT SURFER follows the life of an enigmatic, abused child named Tony Jess. While Tony retreats further and further into autism, fate is plotting an out-of-this-world plan for his future that, even in his wildest "psychotic" dreams, he couldn't imagine. Sometimes, one needs to remain naïve for sanity's sake. At least, until the future has sufficiently gestated and is ready to become the present.

On the other hand, the fate of Dr. Baird, Tony's psychiatrist, appears, like that of Dr. Baird's father, quite predictable: Father and son are destined to become two of Australia’s most prominent psychiatrists as they attempt to restore Tony to normalcy. Their ultimate fate, and that of everyone touched by them, however, ends up quite different than imagined. The reason for the detour in the history of the world is the very subject they are studying: Tony Jess.

Under instruction by Dr. Baird, Jr., Tony, as he recovered, kept a journal, recording his awakening and detailing his fantasies, a journal so unusual that it ended up being seized by the United States government. The contents of the journal ultimately spark an international cover-up headed by the newly formed United Nations Technology Commission. As far as Dr. Baird, Jr., is concerned, it's all ludicrous. Tony's schizophrenia is being unveiled as he recovers from his autism; Tony's psychotic fantasies are anything but true, and this was well before the word "alien" appeared in the mess. What else is unveiled is that Tony is also a savant—a prodigy when it comes to computer programming—one bristling with plenty of reasons for wanting vengeance on a world that never seemed to understand or want him from the start.

The best computer experts from governments all over the world spend twenty years trying to crack the reams of computer code he generated and, to their horror, released to the Internet and is now integrated into virtually all computing devices throughout the world. In a last desperate effort, Dr. Baird is finally given an opportunity to read Tony’s journal. Although he finds nothing in the journal that would change his diagnosis, he does get an idea of what the world is so concerned about. Regardless of how Tony learned to program computers, the programs could prove a disastrous weapon in the wrong hands, or even a global doomsday device. In the end, the proof of Tony's sanity and the fate of the world, hang in what the "sleeper code" he's release will do when the time comes. And that time is suddenly now.

Sincerely,
David Allan Williams
Author of LIGHT SURFER (Savant 2012)

ENOUGH DELIGHTFUL CRAZINESS EVEN FOR "THE LOONS"

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 18:09:39 +0100

Back in the 1930s, Americans would struggle to part with twenty-five cents in order to spend part of an afternoon at the movies trying to forget the Great Depression and the uncertain times outside the theater. Screwball comedies provided the antidote to their desolation in this difficult time in our history.

In THE LOONS (Savant 2012), I've recreated the spirit of laughable chaos reminiscent of the screwball comedies of the thirties with an eccentric family of seven DeLune cousins that neighbors call "The Loons."

The book is the story of Christy Prentice, a young, married con-artist who makes her money attending funeral services for super-wealthy men, and then passing off a doctored photo of herself, revealing that the dearly departed was her father. Estates would usually send her a few thousand dollars just to keep her quiet, and as far away from the reading of the will as possible.

At the funeral for her latest mark, recently deceased mega-rich tycoon Parker DeLune, Christy, to her surprise, is welcomed with open arms into the upside-down world of the seven Delune cousins. Celebrate the DeLunes with Christy as she navigates their eccentricities, discovering in the process that hers is not the only con-game afoot: the wily estate attorneys are running their own scam, and aren't at all inclined to welcome to another player.

The discovery phase continues as Christy finds herself fighting for "The Loons," and ultimately for her own dreams and sanity.

In these time of social, political and economic unrest, I invite you to kick back and enjoy THE LOONS. And I hope to be back soon with Norma Jean and Kate in CALLING NORMA JEAN, the sequel to HELLO, NORMA JEAN (Savant 2010).

Sue Dolleris
Author of
THE LOONS (Savant 2012)
HELLO, NORMA JEAN (Savant 2010)

JUMP INTO THE UNKNOWN WITH "CHIMNEY BLUFFS"

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 17:52:14 +0100

David B. Seaburn draws from over thirty five years’ experience as a minister and psychotherapist to address some of the most basic issues of the human heart: loss, uncertainty, hope, fear, love, joy, seeking, wonder, and redemption. Seaburn has written and published three novels, DARKNESS IS AS LIGHT (2005) and PUMPKIN HILL (2007), and CHARLIE NO FACE (2011), which was a Finalist for the 2011 Indie Excellence in Books Award. Seaburn continues his focus on the dilemmas of human experience with his latest novel, CHIMNEY BLUFFS, a complex and powerful story of love, loss and renewal.

In CHIMNEY BLUFFS, Kate and Mitch have devoted their lives to their four-year-old son, Danny, having shepherded him through heart surgery only to have him struck down unexpectedly by a virulent and unforgiving form of meningitis. In their grief, Mitch proposes that they jump together from the cliffs at Chimney Bluffs, a nearby state park. For him, it will bring the family together again, this time in eternity. For Kate, who does not believe in an afterlife and who feels responsible for Danny’s death, it will be justice.

The next morning, two park employees, Clancy and Bobby, find Danny and his favorite toys side by side in two sacks, Mitch dead in the water nearby, and Kate lying on the shore, very much alive. What follows is a story of loss, grief and renewal, as Kate, Clancy and Bobby form an unlikely friendship, sharing and wrestling with the losses in each of their lives that have made moving forward nearly impossible. In the end, it is the quality of those relationships that not only pulls them through, but enables each of them to emerge as new persons.

David B. Seaburn is a retired psychologist, marriage and family therapist, and ordained minister. He lives with his wife in Spencerport, NY.

KEYS IN THE RIVER

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 20:39:08 +0100

“There are keys in the river. Life is one long river, a pretty voice sings.”

Sometime during mid-1994, I started writing essays, poems, and short stories to help me pass the O-level English exams which I had failed a couple of times in the past. I never thought I was writing pieces that would be read; rather, I began writing simply as practice for this important exam, a rite of passage to higher education in Zimbabwe.

The works, however, continued to develop and evolve, as if they were struggling for a life of their own. The earliest iteration of this collection came together as Undying Echoes sometime near the end of 1997. It was then that I developed a conviction to become a professional writer. That collection, which I finished around 1999, dealt with the unfolding of relationships against the backdrop of a continent, Africa, deeply conflicted by social and cultural differences.

Cypriot poet, Nora Nadjarian, brought the expression "keys in the river," to my attention through her potent poem entitled Obdachloser Off the Coast, Spring 2009. In meditating on it, my appreciation for her graceful turn of the phrase grew. Water is a classic symbol of life; therefore, the river is a symbol for our own flow through life. Keys are an almost mystical symbol. They are meaningless in and of themselves, unless they match a lock and, being used, reveal that which has been hidden. I remember the questions floating through my mind: What keys are in the river? What might be revealed with these keys? Why were they left behind?

The expression continued to undulate through my mind as an iconic and deeply appropriate title which hinted at the figurative and symbolic connections reverberating through the stories I had collected. It was this impetus that caused me, during August 2009, to rework the manuscript into Keys in the River, using advice I had accumulated from other African writers over the years. I wanted this collection to touch the experience of modern Zimbabwe in a visceral, yet symbolic manner. It is so important for us, as Zimbabweans, to enter into the planetary conversation with our own stories about humanity. We need something that we can recognize as our own, even if the story is sometimes tragic and often deeply conflicted.

Svosve Road is a small road in Chitungwiza, a populous city in Zimbabwe that has been my home for seventeen years. I sometimes watch people walking up and down the road, moving along the moments of their lives. Even now, after all these troubles we have been through as a people, I am continually fascinated by the deeply tenacious, mythically-enduring quality life in this place. Despite what has happened in Zimbabwe, people still walk along the road laughing, flirting, and fighting just as people do everywhere. These days, I see this road as a symbol - a river - and we who walk and live along it keys in waiting, left here by the currents of social, political and economic forces so much larger than us.

I remember those who walk on this road who are now in other worlds. Picked up in the current, they have been dispersed. I wonder where - even whether - they are, and if their lives have been fulfilled. Someday, they may return. Most probably, they will not. There are many who, lost in the turbulence of our world, are already dead. Washed away, they are the shiny keys to the past, present and future, covered, hidden under layers of silt. Thus, I meditate on the world in which I, too, participate, though with little deftness and with frequent reminders of my own inconsequence.

This symbol of lost keys cast into a river, of meanings and lives displaced, flows through the stories in this volume. The themes describe the lives of Zimbabweans, both here and abroad. And, though KEYS IN THE RIVER is certainly a poetic and resonant name, I still felt it, on its own, was not enough. So, with the help of my editors, Zach and Jennie Oliver, we created the subtitle, Notes from a Modern Chimurenga.

The Shona word, "chimurenga," translates as "struggle" in English. As with all translations, simply putting the word into English doesn't mean that the whole of the idea contained in the Shona word is comfortable in its new clothes. Regardless, the more I thought about the stories, the more appropriate the idea of "struggle" became as the human theme connecting these stories, at least as a point of entré. Perhaps, and more appropriately, given the use of the term, chimurenga, the important theme coursing through this work is this: Even when people are faced with a chaotic and turbulent world due to the machinations of despotic leaders, the terror of deathly pandemics, the chronic poverty, the human heart continues to pump with courage and conviction.

Chimurenga, then, is not just a struggle, but also a noble stance in the face of struggle. The two titles work hand in hand: The river is a path through life, and the keys symbolize the peak moments in this river of life. The moments may be good or of bad, things that make us roar with outrage or laugh like a child, even sing and dance. Each, I hope, will opening a life for someone, unlock another mystery of simply being.

When the subtitle, Notes from a Modern Chimurenga was added, we built up the manuscript with an additional fourteen stories. This made KEYS IN THE RIVER a "greatest hits" collection. Most, if not all these stories are real-life stories that I sometimes added to or embellished within the broader confines of fiction, but I have kept the facts correct, or almost correct, so that someone reading this collection would know they are reading about real life in modern Zimbabwe.

There are stories set in the Zimbabwean country side of Nyanga where I was born and grew up, stories of Zimbabwean cities, especially Chitungwiza-Harare, where I lived for so many years, stories which touch on Mozambique and Botswana where I have been, and stories from South Africa where I lived as an expatriate for two and half years. The stories touch on the futility of dreams in a world of complex economic realities in which AIDS has affected almost every household. It spans from the pre-liberation years up to 2009. It also sprawls across different cultural systems, beliefs, and lives, but it still is fundamentally about the human struggle, the chimurenga.

Through all these pieces, I've tried to share my thoughts and opinions on politics, both in civics and in relationships. In all these pieces, I am trying to pull the reader along some path of thought with me to a named or implied conclusion. I found genuine inspiration in making the effort to open up a whole new world to readers, one which they can, I hope, populate with their own thoughts and feelings, one in which they might be able to experience the modern Zimbabwean chimurenga.

The biggest import of this novel, then, is how each of us, as human beings, go through all these potentially life-changing situations, regardless of our point of origin, on our journey to finding love, freedom, democracy, social justice, completeness, human and civil justice, happiness, economic emancipation, and satisfaction.

Tendai Mwanaka
Author of KEYS IN THE RIVER (Savant 2012)

SLAVES UNTO THEMSELVES and the need for a TRAVELER'S REST

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 18:25:15 +0100

When I first started writing TRAVELER'S REST back in 2005, it wasn’t my intention of writing a book. I had spent the last year and a half writing scripts for an Atlanta production company, my first paid gig as a writer. I enjoyed writing scripts, but I longed to writing stories. Given, the similar ruthlessness of both the book publishing and film-making worlds, I felt prepared.

A screenplay doesn’t really come to life unless it is produced. If it isn’t produced, the script might as well not exist. A book or story on the other hand, as long as it’s read, fulfills its purpose. So I set out to write a few short stories, starting with what is now the third chapter of this book, “Raul & Laura." My intention at the time was to write an anti-romance that looked at a loveless, manipulative relationship and the psychological ties that somehow kept it going. It was an easy story to write -- at the time I was reading Nietzsche and was particularly intrigued by his take on how choices make people slaves. I wrote another pair of stories along the same line, and a book started to take form, entitled appropriately enough, SLAVES.

The more I wrote, the more everything began to connect. I had one story, “Drifters” that was my ode to THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES and ON THE ROAD, so I re-made that story the centerpiece, and its hero, Tony, the connective tissue for the various storylines. After a few drafts, the book morphed on its own from a book of short stories into a cohesive, yet non-chronological, narrative. However, I wasn’t at a point in my life where I was able pull it all together, and after several rejections from publishers for DRIFTERS as a whole, I started submitting separate chapters to contests and anthologies. In 2006, one chapter, “The Revolutionary” was published in an anthology called THE SHORTCUT: 20 STORIES TO GET YOU FROM HERE TO THERE. Inspired, I tried again to get the whole book published, and, after receiving more rejections, decided the book was a failure and put it aside.

In 2009, I started to work as an editor for Savant Books and Publications, where I met Zachary Oliver, whose book FALLING BUT FULFILLED (Savant 2010) I still consider the high point of my work as a Savant editor. Zach and I became good friends, and later when he became a Savant editor, then Editor-in-Chief at Savant, I decided to ask him to have a look at SLAVES/DRIFTERS and tell me if I should continue working on it. To my surprise -- I had begun to hate the book -- he loved it and asked me to let him edit it. The result, TRAVELER'S REST is my first wholly-authored work [I had since co-authored COMMUNION (Savant 2011) with Jean Blasiar]

TRAVELER'S REST represents a merging of various influences. When I first wrote it, my favorite books were ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac and THE BOOK OF DISQUIET by Fernando Pessoa. It would take many pages to explain the effect that Kerouac and Pessoa had on me, but suffice to say I count myself as one who had gone through stagnation and hopelessness.

Another influence that became fully apparent only when the work approached publication was Che Guevara’s THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES. Guevara’s work was about two privileged young men who initially set out looking to have some fun and score with women, but who, in the process, became socially and spiritually awakened to the suffering of the poor, the disenfranchised and the oppressed they meet along their journey.

At the beginning of Traveler’s Rest, Tony and Charlie are both figures out of Kerouac. They oppress themselves seemingly out of a desire to be interesting. The insights into Tony’s heroin addiction are largely those of an overgrown child and egomaniac. The same is true of Charlie’s existential despair. By the end, however, Tony becomes more of a Guevara figure, seeking to dedicate himself to a cause greater than himself.

That cause, Puerto Rican independence, and the safeguarding of Puerto Rican culture, is one that is near and dear to my heart. Much like Tony’s family, mine came to the States from Puerto Rico and struggled to strike a balance between retaining our culture and assimilation. The characters of Charlie and Tony represent these two aspects, growing up as the children of immigrants. Charlie is largely assimilated. He becomes an Anglo-American. Tony, on the hand, is caught between the cultures and the sensibility. The ties are nostalgic, but he also has a realistic view of the island as it is today. Being caught between two worlds, however, creates considerable confusion, and is at the heart of his inability to connect with his family, which has largely been assimilated.

The struggle for independence I depict is fictional. There is no Boriken movement, though it was inspired by the Macheteros, a real guerrilla group on the island. The struggles depicted in “The Revolutionary” are also fictionalized, though there was a senator named Barbosa who tried to turn Puerto Rico into a State by helping the Americans suppress our culture and language. Thankfully, he was unsuccessful, though people like him continue to harm the island and its people. Today, groups like the Movimiento Independentista Nacional Hostosiano (or MINH) are uniting Puerto Ricans of all political and social stripes to better the lives of everyone on the island. But the independence movement is constantly being splintered by the more militant and more diplomatic.

In many ways, TRAVELER'S REST is a dreamscape, a story of chaos and the human need to attempt to control it. But more than that, it is about everyone's need to control him or herself, and finding freedom in control. Like any dream, I hope TRAVELER'S REST expresses more than what is merely on the surface, and, that like the best of dreams, the book will stay with readers long after the last page is turned.

Sincerely,
Jonathan Marcantoni
Author of TRAVELER'S REST (Savant 2012)
Co-author of COMMUNION (Savant 2011) - winner of both a New England and Lost Angeles Book Festival Award

POETRY LIVES!

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 17:31:17 +0100

Flush with success after receiving first place for poetry in the 2011 London Book Festival for WAVELENGTHS - The 2011 Savant Anthology of Poetry, we bring you FIFTY-EIGHT STONES - The 2012 Savant Anthology of Poetry!

FIFTY-EIGHT STONES presents thirty-four outstanding poems by eleven exceptional and many award-winning poets including Shawn Canon, Nadia Cox, Helen Doan, David Gemmell, Richard Hookway, Daniel S. Janik, Vivekanand Jha, Doc Krinberg, Julie McKinney, Francis Powell and Jean Yamasaki Toyama. Edited by Daniel S. Janik, FIFTY-EIGHT STONES is the third in Savant's yearly poetry anthology series, proof positive that poetry is not dead in the publishing world!

Why the unusual title? Savant Books and Publications is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, and in respect for the Hawaiian tradition, we thought our poems, like the fifty-eight different kinds of stones in Hawaii, were also imbued with mana (spiritual power) and meaning. If you like poetry - and, hey, who hasn't at some time in their life? - I invite you to enjoy this luau (celebratory smorgasbord) of poetry. And if you're a poet at heart - and, hey, who isn't at some time in their life? - dig out those treasured poems, drop by http://www.savantbooksandpublications.com/poetry.php and submit them for consideration in the 2013 Anthology. Savant Books and Publications - It's about Heart-to-Heart Communication.

Sincerely,
Daniel S. Janik (editor for FIFTY-EIGHT STONES - The 2012 Savant Anthology of Poetry)

Alive and Aware, Living Life as It Really Is

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 07:29:56 +0100

ON MY BEHALF was never meant to be published. It was merely a journal for my venting. Nothing formal. My intent was to bring my life to light to myself and hopefully band-aid some old gaping wounds.

As I was writing, however, I had an epiphany. I thought ever-so-reluctantly: What if my story mattered to someone, even helped them to realize things about themselves that would have otherwise been swept under the rug and ignored? Wouldn’t that be worth publishing? It suddenly dawned on me that writing is actually quite pointless without publishing it, because there is no hope of anyone other than myself benefiting.

And, so here I am: four years into writing this on again off again memoir and three more years in the hands of my publisher. The time has finally come for it to be released. Sometimes humorous, sometimes intense, ON MY BEHALF recounts the crucial experiences that molded and shaped me as a person.

I earnestly and naively took my chances at every crossroad I encountered in early adulthood whether it was with dating, work, or friendship…for me, it was a gamble every time.

In ON MY BEHALF, I reveal my personal beliefs and biases with zero sugarcoating (I only sugarcoat when it comes to my poetry because that is the nature of poetry: getting the point across without being too direct). ON MY BEHALF is far from poetic in the sense that it was written exactly the way I would have said it. It's my internal dialogue slapped onto pages. I recall the hardships and endeavors without ever forgetting the indignity originally associated with these incidents. ON MY BEHALF details every key event from my shoplifting days to my fumbling romances to career failure to my inability to commit to anyone or anything. In retrospect, I believe I have experienced about every good, bad, and bitter emotion known to man.

Please don’t judge this memoir by the my age. Some lives are lived more furiously than others. Not to say that’s a good or bad thing. Take what you will from this book. Take it at face value if you prefer. I deny nothing. This is my story and I gladly share it with you.

Helen Doan - Author of ON MY BEHALF (Savant 2012)

RULES OF PRIVILEGE

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:22:38 +0100

As I mentioned just before Savant Books released my previous novel, MANIFEST INTENT, I had returned to my roots as a lawyer after my first novel, the Hawaiian thriller KANAKA BLUES. My newest work, RULES OF PRIVILEGE, stays in that world, but strays from the environment of the big law firm into the orbit of solo practitioners, who sometimes struggle just to stay afloat.

While the problems of large and small firms often are radically different, all lawyers, no matter the size of their firms, confront ethical issues to which there are often no easy answers. The disciplinary rules of a particular state may offer guidelines, but in the day-to-day affairs of law practice, sometimes there is no bright line test. RULES OF PRIVILEGE takes a behind-the-scenes look at the dilemma a criminal lawyer faces when she knows her client is guilty -- knows, in fact, that he may be a serial killer -- yet she is duty bound to zealously defend him. Complicate that with a family relationship and the line blurs even more. That’s the dilemma Dane Morgan faces in this legal thriller.

Mike Farris
Author of RULES OF PRIVILEGE (Savant 2012)

BLOOD MONEY - The Ultimate Collection of Post-Modern Short Stories

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:33:27 +0100

In my opinion, an outstanding short story collection is the crowning glory of post-modern literature, and as proof, I offer my readers BLOOD MONEY - TALES FROM TWO CONTINENTS.

Each story is complete, but together, transcends individuality to timelessness and immortality. A dramatic vision of humankind's greatness and shortcomings, BLOOD MONEY takes on Love, Regret, Lust, Revenge, Hopelessness, Hope, Security, Adventure, Frustration and Acceptance. In my stories, it's the characters' uniquely individual experiences, ranging from the sublime to the bizarre, that enable them to ultimately fulfill their destiny. BLOOD MONEY stories use the raw power of everyday language to reveal what the characters think, feel and do, their actions often far beyond anything they believed themselves capable of. This is the culmination of what the soul lives for, and what I hope you will find in this work.

Join me as an advertising manager tries to get a bucket off his head, a writer tries to keep his stories from becoming too real, a professor tries to find a lost cat, and two women try to control the one thing they can't...their own lives.

Scott Mastro
Author of BLOOD MONEY - TALES FROM TWO CONTINENTS (Savant 2012)