In my short novel Circus, the band plays this song as it marches off the circus train just after its arrival in Wichita, Kansas in 1935.
Category Archives: Books
PROGRESS REPORT
2,200 words into a short novel that will probably run to 27,000 words. It’s a story I’ve had in mind for a while — a tale of the big top, of the golden age of the great American circus trains, in the 1930s.
After a couple of days of work on it, I feel a certain amount of momentum gathering in the narrative, and I know where it’s going — both good signs.
So I created a cover for it, to make it seem more real, forced myself to stop writing and fixed a nightcap to keep me away from the keyboard — I can’t write when I’m drinking.
Writing is a tiresome business most of the time — but it has its moments, like this one, when I feel excited about getting back to it tomorrow.
Click on the images to enlarge.
FREE TO BORROW!
If you own a Kindle and subscribe to Amazon Prime you can borrow my Western tale Missouri Green for free. If not, you can download it for just $1.99 and read it on almost any computer or portable device with Amazon’s free Kindle Reading Apps, available here.
The year is 1849. A feisty young whore in New Orleans decides to light out for the goldfields of California and gets the bright idea of buying a slave, a sullen man seething with rage but infinitely resourceful and a crack shot, to help her make the overland journey. Neither of them can imagine the epic adventure that lies before them, the dangers, the magnificence, the heroism and the unlikely bond, stronger that any slaver’s chains, that will come to unite them. This is a Western tale, an American tale — a voyage into the wild and troubled heart of the American dream.
A NEW AMAZON CUSTOMER REVIEW!
. . . of Missouri Green:
Terrific Tale!
Another sublime Western from Lloyd Fonvielle. I really love this story. Quintessentially American, profoundly American. Beautiful, funny, sad, and always engaging. Peopled with characters who will stay with you for a long, long while. Strong, full female protagonist. Strong, full male protagonist. Has the feel and landscape of a traditional Western, but will surprise you too!
Click here for the review and book details.
SINATRA: THE LIFE
This is an extensively researched and highly detailed biography of Sinatra, very readable and entertaining. As with any Sinatra biography it dwells at some length on the dark and sensational aspects of the singer’s life, but this is offset by a genuine appreciation of Sinatra’s art and a sincere effort to evoke the genius of it.
Recommended.
PULP MASTER
I order a lot of books online and I’m always happy when they arrive, but rarely do I anticipate the delivery of one of them as keenly as I anticipated the delivery of this one.
Henry Kuttner was a fascinating figure. He wrote hundreds of novellas, novelettes and short stories for pulp magazines between 1936 and 1958, the year of his untimely death at the age of 42. Many of his works were written in collaboration with his wife C. L. Moore (seen with Kuttner above) — their friends said it was impossible to tell who contributed what to any particular tale.
He was an admirer of H. P. Lovecraft, and wrote a number of stories set within Lovecraft’s cthulhu mythos, He wrote in a wide variety of other forms, too — conventional horror, sword and sorcery, space opera, detective thriller. He had to be prolific, to write fast, in order to make a living at pulp fiction, which saved him from the sins of literary preciosity — his tales are punchy and lean, great fun to read. The horror tales are often extremely disturbing to read as well — he had a genuinely creepy and ghoulish imagination.
He was a mentor to or great influence upon many writers who are better known today than he is — Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson among them.
The collection of his early tales pictured above, containing mostly horror fiction, published by the Haffner Press in a handsome edition with a sewn binding, is every bit as thrilling as I anticipated it would be.
THE DAYS OF ’49
One of my favorite Dylan recordings, and much on my mind when writing Missouri Green, a Gold Rush tale, which has a couple of references to the song . . .
A BOOK COVER FOR TODAY
A NEW REVIEW
On Amazon:
Why are most novels so long? It’s a function of the economics of the publishing industry more than art. Fonvielle shows how in 82 pages one can tell a complete and even epic tale. Set during the California Gold Rush, the action moves from lush New Orleans to the dangerous open plains of the midwest to the hallucinatory heat of the Nevada desert as the two main characters, Missouri and Jim, learn to trust and love one another. I read it in one sitting. It’s filled with action, emotion, humor, and heartache.
You a fan of Westerns? Adventure stories? Great storytelling? If the answer is yes to any of those, you’ll want to add this to your collection.
Missouri Green — check it out!
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
Over at Uncouth Reflections, Blowhard, Esq. has published an explosive tell-all interview with yours truly.
Actually, he just asked some brilliantly provocative questions about my life as a working writer and my latest efforts as the author of fiction e-books, which I tried to answer as best I could. You might find it of interest.
LITERARY FICTION
I really can’t understand why modern “literary” writers take so many words to tell a story — why they think a reader has nothing better to do than read a list of the plants growing outside the window of a room where nothing has happened. Why they spend so much time applying quirky adjectives to objects that will play no part in the tale. Why they use adverbs to describe how a line of dialogue is spoken, when it should be clear from the context.
It’s as though they think they have the rapt attention of a captive audience with nowhere else to go, no other opportunities for distraction. What world are they living in? Who do they think they are? In many cases, of course, they have no story to tell, just a sensibility to sell — the quirky adjectives and useless adverbs and lists of things are all they have to offer to “express” themselves. But if they do have a story to tell, why don’t they just get on with it? The sensibility of a storyteller is at best a faint herbal flavor in a rich stew. The story is the stew.
THE FIRST AMAZON REVIEW
. . . of my new Western novella Missouri Green:
RAN MY KINDLE BATTERY DOWN
Set before the American Civil War, during the California gold rush, Missouri Green has a different feel than some other western stories in that the impact of the war doesn’t play into the narrative as it does in so many other westerns set later in the 19th century. Slavery and it’s divisiveness still loom large as do the dangers not realized by those crossing the country during those early years of western expansion. Vivid in imagery and detail, I got lost in the narrative and found myself imagining the heat of the desert sun followed by the frigid temperatures later in the night of the same day. I caught sight of the trail that split northward or continued west to California. I wanted to move faster as the snow started falling in the mountain passes.
The characters are well written into the times without the whitewashing we see in some westerns. Flawed, frayed, scared, strong, violent, cunning, and temperamental … sometimes all in the same day. There’s chivalry and compassion, sweat and blood, sickness & death. No glorified rootin’ tootin’ cowboys here, just people trying to get by and get ahead any way they can.
I read Missouri Green in two sessions. It would have been a single session but my Kindle lost charge. Yeah, Missouri Green was so good I didn’t notice the charge till the screen went black. That’s how good this story was.
Click here for the review and book details — it costs only $1.99.
A THOMAS CRANMER COLLECT FOR TODAY
Almighty & everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve, pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy, forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid and giving unto us that which our prayer dare not presume to ask . . .
BLOOMSDAY
AVAILABLE NOW!
On Amazon for the Kindle and for free Kindle reading apps that work on almost all computers and portable devices.
The year is 1849. A feisty young whore in New Orleans decides to light out for the goldfields of California and gets the bright idea of buying a slave, a sullen man seething with rage but infinitely resourceful and a crack shot, to help her make the overland journey. Neither of them can imagine the epic adventure that lies before them, the dangers, the magnificence, the heroism and the unlikely bond, stronger that any slaver’s chains, that will come to unite them. This is a Western tale, an American tale — a voyage into the wild and troubled heart of the American dream.
Missouri Green — a short novel, only $1.99.