Category Archives: Books
PROGRESS REPORT
I spent most of today proofreading a completed first draft of my short novel Circus, fiddling around on the Internet for long stretches in between sessions, to keep from going crazy.
I had proofed the text five times previously, then sent it off to my sister Lee, who is the world’s greatest proofreader (and copy editor). I had missed scores of typos, which she spotted. She also had some concerns about the way I presented one of the characters in the story, so I did some rewriting to address those concerns.
She’s reading it again, I’m proofing it again, making minor revisions as I go. The end is in sight . . . maybe.
A PULP PAPERBACK COVER FOR TODAY
A PULP PAPERBACK COVER FOR TODAY
A PAPERBACK COVER FOR TODAY
A PULP PAPERBACK COVER FOR TODAY
A PULP PAPERBACK COVER FOR TODAY
CATS
Animal tamer Captain Jack Bonavita sitting down with some of his cats, at Coney Island in 1904.
In my short novel Circus, lion tamer Carl Ellenbeck affects Bonavita’s sang froid, but is secretly terrified that his big cats will discover how terrified he is of them, at which point he knows they would immediately tear him to pieces.
Bonavita was utterly fearless, and once appeared in a cage with 27 lions. In 1904, a lion he was performing with attacked him and mangled his arm, which eventually had to be amputated. He continued performing, however, until he was killed in 1917 by a polar bear he was training.
With thanks to Bryan Castañeda . . .
Click on the image to enlarge.
A NEW AMAZON CUSTOMER REVIEW
Great Western novella
I bought this book on a recommendation from a friend and enjoyed it, mainly because it’s brief, it’s concise, it’s thrilling and believable and doesn’t talk down to the reader; everything that fiction should be.
Missouri Green is a Western, revolving around the eponymous protagonist, a New Orleans prostitute who tires of her job and decides to make the perilous journey west to California. To help her survive the journey and mine for gold, she buys herself a slave named Jim, a highly-skilled outdoorsman. I can’t help but see this as a blatant reference to Huckleberry Finn, not only because Missouri constantly calls him “N***** Jim,” but because a big part of the plot concerns her learning to respect Jim and view him as a smart, loyal human being.
Jim himself is depicted with more complexity and depth than you typically get from characters like him. He begins the novel openly resentful of Missouri and even comes close to murdering her a couple of times. None of this feels forced, though, thanks to Fonvielle’s crisp, unpretentious style and economical use of words (the book can be read in less than an hour).
I subtracted one star from the book because of the ending, where the book starts to come apart, but otherwise, Missouri Green is worth a look even if you aren’t normally into this kind of genre fiction.
You can buy the book here for only $1.99 — Missouri Green. Kindle owners who subscribe to Amazon Prime can borrow it for free.
PROGRESS REPORT
At the heart of my short novel Circus are two young women, Beth and Anne, The Kelly Twins. They are trapeze artists, brilliant and beautiful. One of them is bitter and malicious, one of them is saintly — but when they fly together, they seem to share a single mind, a single heart, even a single soul.
No one who knows them only on the ground knows them at all, and the adoring men who watch them from the sawdust below, flying together, fall in love with a great mystery.
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POTATO HEAD BLUES
In my short novel Circus, at Greenbaugh’s Majestic Circus, in the Colored Performers’ Dressing Tent, the guys, including the members of Greenbaugh’s Famous Darkie Orchestra, like to listen to Pops, this song in particular, on a portable Victrola, when getting ready for a show.
Life in the circus during the Depression was rough on everybody, but roughest on the performers of color. Pops gave them courage and hope.
PROGRESS REPORT
Switching to a third-person narrator has opened the floodgates on Circus, my short novel in progress. I’m able to jump between multiple storylines at will, which is keeping the narrative lively, at least for me.
Circus is a crazy tale — part romance, part Grand Guignol thriller . . . like an extravagant silent movie scenario. The circus itself is so surreal and over-the-top that it seems to demand lurid melodrama when telling a story about its backstage dramas and intrigues.
In any case, it suits my mood and is giving me a thrill a minute.
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A PULP MAGAZINE COVER FOR TODAY
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THE DARKTOWN STRUTTERS’ BALL
This song was a favorite of Chief Tam-Tam, from West Africa — leader, in 1935, of the “Ubangi” troupe in Greenbaugh’s Majestic Circus, in my short novel Circus. Tam was homesick and often drunk, dreaming of going back to the old country, but he had a “special friend” at the colored whorehouse in Wichita, Kansas and every time the circus played that town, she took all his money, leaving him no choice but to stay with the show.
PROGRESS REPORT
As I mentioned earlier, I got off to a good start on my short novel Circus but about 3,000 words in I ran into a problem. I realized that my plan to use a first-person narrator wasn’t going to work, because I needed scenes that my narrator couldn’t possibly have known about.
This was discouraging, since I’d already discovered a voice for the narrator that I was comfortable with. I tried to fudge my way out of it, by suggesting that my narrator was telling us about things he learned of later, but it felt false.
So I started revising what I’d written as a third-person narrative. It wasn’t as difficult as I’d imagined and I’m now forging ahead from where I left off.
And so it goes . . .
Ciick on the images to enlarge.