by Laurel Brett
The End
Acknowledgments
My deepest love and appreciation go to Kaylie Jones, my ambassador of quan. Kaylie is the fairy godmother who made my dream of writing a novel that people might want to read come true. She encouraged me to believe in my story and find my narrator, and rescued me with the perfect metaphor when I was in the tall grass, one that showed how to keep my plot afloat. I am honored to be published by Kaylie Jones Books.
To Johnny Temple, my admiration and gratitude. I admire your dedication to literature and your devotion to independent publishing, and my thanks are boundless for your willingness to publish an unknown writer.
I can’t calculate Tram Neill’s contributions. He has been a friend and inspiration since high school, and he brought his psychologist’s eye to the project, making sure the science and psychology were accurate. He also very graciously edited the manuscript and corrected more mistakes than I can admit to making.
Elizabeth Wheeler has been stalwart in reading early drafts of almost everything I write. There is no way to thank a friend enough for that kind of generosity. A writer could not ask for a more sensitive or articulate reader. Lainie Learnard read the finished novel and complained that I had kept her up all night. I can’t imagine sweeter encouragement, and I am so grateful. Gina Dubussion and Dan Herbatschek generously read early versions of the novel and encouraged me to continue.
Kevin Heisler read the manuscript and sent me the most beautifully detailed e-mail that raised important questions and urged me to go further and spice things up. Laurie Loewenstein brought her insight and vision to my novel and reminded me to look carefully at each and every word. I offer her my sincere thanks.
I want to thank the students of Kaylie Jones’s advanced writing seminar in the fall of 2015, particularly Jean Ende, Dorothy Hom, and Rachel Wong, who always showed me where I was going wrong. That’s invaluable feedback. I thank Minna Barrett, Tanya Lowenstein, and Cindy Rinaldi for always listening. Their support gave me the courage to keep writing. The members of the Vigilante Lounge were always there to hear about my progress and urge me to continue.
To Dutchy Brett I offer sincere thanks for so many things. She gave me a “mother grant.” When I unexpectedly lost a sabbatical I was counting on, she replaced the lost funds herself so I could miss a semester of teaching to concentrate on my writing. She always shows interest in my work. Beyond that, she introduced me to Little Women and other classics, read Shakespeare with me, and showed me the joys of language.
There is no way I can ever thank my husband, Mark Kauffman, enough for his cheerful attention to the more quotidian details of life so I would be free to write. He also read every word of this novel, almost as I wrote them, and was endlessly encouraging and engaged, even at two in the morning. He edited and proofread, listened to my insecurities, and was the best cheerleader imaginable.
David Brett, my beloved son, was involved with every aspect of this story. He thrashed out plot points with me, made suggestions, considered the science, debated all aspects of the story, and attended to every word. He also did more formatting and computer work than either of us want to remember. His support and suggestions made the completion of this book possible.
Mia Brett, my beloved daughter, is a constant inspiration to me. She listened to all my ideas and brought her understanding of history and literature to my beginning efforts. I couldn’t have done this without her.
To all my friends and family who encouraged, supported, and inspired me, thank you so much.
LAUREL BRETT a refugee from the 1960s, was born in Manhattan in the middle of the last century. Her passionate interest in the arts and social justice led her to a PhD and a long career as a community college professor. She expanded her award-winning dissertation on Thomas Pynchon’s work into a groundbreaking analysis, Disquiet on the Western Front: World War II and Postmodern Fiction, which was published by Cambridge Scholars. She lives in Port Jefferson, New York. The Schrödinger Girl is her debut novel.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher.
Published by Akashic Books
©2020 Laurel Brett
Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-61775-729-7
eISBN-13: 978-1-61775-773-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019935335
First printing
Akashic Books
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Website: www.akashicbooks.com
ABOUT KAYLIE JONES BOOKS
an Akashic Books imprint
The increasingly commercial nature of mainstream publishing has made it difficult for literary writers to find a home for their more serious, thought-provoking works. Kaylie Jones Books will create a cooperative of dedicated emerging and established writers who will play an integral part in the publishing process, from reading manuscripts, editing, offering advice, to advertising the upcoming publications. The list of brilliant novels unable to find homes within the mainstream is growing every day.
It is our hope to publish books that bravely address serious issues—historical or contemporary—relevant to society today. Just because a book addresses serious topics and may include tragic events does not mean that the narrative cannot be amusing, fast-paced, plot-driven, and lyrical all at once. Our flagship publication, Unmentionables by Laurie Loewenstein, is exactly such a novel. The book takes place in 1917 Illinois, on the verge of US involvement in WWI. While the larger topics are race and women’s suffrage, the characters and their courageous stands against oppression and reactionary bigotry could not be more relevant today.
Kaylie Jones
New York, NY
NOW AVAILABLE FROM KAYLIE JONES BOOKS
Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night
by Barbara J. Taylor
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“An earnest, well-done historical novel that skillfully blends fact and fiction.” —Publishers Weekly
“This story is at once poignant and hopeful, spiced up by such characters as Billy Sunday, the revivalist, and Grief, the specter who haunts Grace to the very edge of sanity. A rich debut.” —Historical Novel Society
“A fantastic novel worthy of the greatest accolades. Writing a book about a historical event can be difficult, as is crafting a bestseller, but Barbara J. Taylor is successful at both.” —Downtown Magazine
“Taylor’s careful attention to detail and her deep knowledge of the community and its people give the novel a welcome gravity.” —The Columbus Dispatch
“One of the most compelling books I’ve ever read . . . a haunting story that will stay with the reader long after reading this novel.” —Story Circle Book Reviews
Almost everyone in town blames eight-year-old Violet Morgan for the death of her nine-year-old sister, Daisy. Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night opens on September 4, 1913, two months after the Fourth of July tragedy. Owen, the girls’ father, “turns to drink” and abandons his family. Their mother Grace falls victim to the seductive powers of Grief, an imagined figure who has seduced her off-and-on since childhood. Violet forms an unlikely friendship with Stanley Adamski, a motherless outcast who works in the mines as a breaker boy. During an unexpected blizzard, Grace goes into premature labor at home and is forced to rely on Violet, while Owen is “off being saved” at a Billy Sunday Revival. Inspired by a haunting family story, Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night blends real life incidents with fiction to show how grace can be found in the midst of tragedy.
Barbara J. Taylor lives in Scranton, Pennsylvania, home of the second-largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the country. She has an MFA in creative writing from Wilkes University and teaches English in the Pocono Mountain School District. She is the author of Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night and All Waiting I
s Long.
Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night is available in paperback from our website and in bookstores everywhere. The e-book edition is available wherever e-books are sold.
Unmentionables
by Laurie Loewenstein
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“Exceptionally readable and highly recommended.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“Engaging first work from a writer of evident ability.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Marian Elliot Adams’ . . . tale is contagiously enthusiastic.” —Publishers Weekly
“Unmentionables is a sweeping and memorable story of struggle and suffrage, love and redemption . . . Loewenstein has skillfuly woven a story and a cast of characters that will remain in the memory long after the book’s last page has been turned.” —New York Journal of Books
“A historical, feminist romance in the positive senses of all three terms: a realistic evocation of small-town America circa 1917, including its racial tensions; a tale about standing up for the equitable treatment of women; and a story about two lonely people who overcome obstacles, including their own character defects, to find love together.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Marian Elliot Adams, an outspoken advocate for sensible undergarments for women, sweeps onto the Chautauqua stage under a brown canvas tent on a sweltering August night in 1917, and shocks the gathered town of Emporia with her speech: How can women compete with men in the work place and in life if they are confined by their undergarments? The crowd is further appalled when Marian falls off the stage and sprains her ankle, and is forced to remain among them for a week. As the week passes, she throws into turmoil the town’s unspoken rules governing social order, women, and Negroes. The recently widowed newspaper editor Deuce Garland, his lapels glittering with fraternal pins, has always been a community booster, his desire to conform rooted in a legacy of shame–his great-grandfather married a black woman, and the town will never let Deuce forget it, especially not his father-in-law, the owner of the newspaper and Deuce’s boss. Deuce and his father-in-law are already at odds, since the old man refuses to allow Deuce’s stepdaughter, Helen, to go to Chicago to fight for women’s suffrage.
But Marian’s arrival shatters Deuce’s notions of what is acceptable, versus what is right, and Deuce falls madly in love with the tall activist from New York. During Marian’s stay in Emporia, Marian pushes Deuce to become a greater, braver, and more dynamic man than he ever imagined was possible. He takes a stand against his father-in-law by helping Helen escape to Chicago; and he publishes an article exposing the county’s oldest farm family as the source of a recent typhoid outbreak, risking his livelihood and reputation. Marian’s journey takes her to the frozen mud of France’s Picardy region, just beyond the lines, to help destitute villagers as the Great War rages on. Helen, in Chicago, is hired as a streetcar conductor surrounded by bitter men who resent her taking a man’s job. Meanwhile, Deuce struggles to make a living and find his place in Emporia’s wider community after losing the newspaper.
Marian is a powerful catalyst that forces nineteenth-century Emporia into the twentieth century; but while she agitates for enlightenment and justice, she has little time to consider her own motives and her extreme loneliness. Marian, in the end, must decide if she has the courage to face small-town life, and be known, or continue to be a stranger always passing through.
Laurie Loewenstein is the author of the best-selling novel Unmentionables. An Ohio native, she currently lives in Columbia, Maryland. Death of a Rainmaker is her latest novel.
Unmentionables is available in paperback from our website and in bookstores everywhere. The e-book edition is available wherever e-books are sold.
Like This Afternoon Forever
by Jaime Manrique
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“The author’s sixth novel weaves together a series of murders and the story of two gay Catholic priests who become lovers.” —New York Times Book Review, “Globetrotting,” April 2019
“A seasoned and venerated writer, Manrique sets his newest novel in his native Colombia, to reckon with the ‘false positive’ scandal, in which the military lured unsuspecting civilians to their deaths and then presented the bodies as defeated insurgents in order to inflate their victories . . . Manrique’s elegant prose anchors this explosive storyline to the intimacy of love . . . Another excellent novel by a master storyteller.” —NBC News, included in 10 New Latino Books
“Jaime Manrique’s new literary novel of love and murder is based on a shocking (and little-reported in US media) crime—up to 10,000 poor and mentally disabled Colombian citizens were lured to remote areas of the country by the Colombian military, murdered, then presented to superiors as ‘guerilla fighters’ to inflate casualty numbers, in what’s been dubbed the ‘false positives’ scandal. In Like This Afternoon Forever, two priests already forced to hide their forbidden love come across evidence of widespread government violence.” —CrimeReads, included in the Most Anticipated Crime Books of Summer 2019
“Against the backdrop of guerrilla warfare in Colombia, two young men fall in love while studying to become Catholic priests. Manrique, a recipient of Colombia’s National Poetry Award as well as a Guggenheim fellowship, weaves into his story the ‘false positives’ scandal, in which members of the Colombian military sought to drum up the number of guerilla fighters they’d killed by murdering and misidentifying innocent civilians.” —Publishers Weekly, included in LGBTQ Feature
“Manrique’s drama of a dangerous love affair in a world of blood, terror, displacement, and desperation grapples with profound and persistent conflicts.” —Booklist
For the last fifty years, the Colombian drug cartels, various insurgent groups, and the government have fought over the control of the drug traffic, in the process destroying vast stretches of the Amazon, devastating Indian communities, and killing tens of thousands of homesteaders caught in the middle of the conflict.
Inspired by these events, Jaime Manrique’s sixth novel, Like This Afternoon Forever, weaves in two narratives: the shocking story of a series of murders known internationally as the “false positives,” and the related story of two gay Catholic priests who become lovers when they meet in the seminary.
Lucas (the son of farmers) and Ignacio (a descendant of the Barí indigenous people) enter the seminary out of a desire to help others and to get an education. Their visceral love story undergoes stages of passion, indifference, rage, and a final commitment to stay together until the end of their lives. Working in a community largely composed of people displaced by the war, Ignacio stumbles upon the horrifying story of the false positives, which will put the lives of the two men in grave danger.
Jaime Manrique is a Colombian-born novelist, poet, essayist, and translator who writes both in English and Spanish, and whose work has been translated into fifteen languages. Among his publications in English are the novels Colombian Gold, Latin Moon in Manhattan, Twilight at the Equator, Our Lives Are the Rivers, and Cervantes Street; he has also published the memoir Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me. His honors include Colombia’s National Poetry Award, a 2007 International Latino Book Award (Best Novel, Historical Fiction), and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a distinguished lecturer in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures at the City College of New York. Like This Afternoon Forever is his latest novel.
Like This Afternoon Forever is available in paperback from our website and in bookstores everywhere. The e-book edition is available wherever e-books are sold.
Cornelius Sky
by Timothy Brandoff
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“The novel is set against a backdrop of a crumbling Manhattan, where tensions are high and things seem to be at a breaking point, mirroring the chaos in Sky’s own life. Brandoff comes to the material honestly, having worked as a city doorman at several buildings over the course of five years in the 1980s.” —New York Post, Buzz Book pick
“Brandoff paints an e
motionally searing portrait of his protagonist, slowly divvying out details of Connie’s past and showing how that past shaped him—his strengths, the pitfalls to which he succumbs and the gaps in his character. Rich, beautiful writing enlarges dramatic scenes that serve to amplify the gritty authenticity of a powerful story.” —Shelf Awareness for Readers, Starred review
“Brandoff’s memorable debut follows the unraveling of Connie Sky, a doorman at a posh apartment building on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue . . . The author impresses as a master of street-smart dialogue in the tradition of George V. Higgins. Connie’s world is made up of lost souls, all lucidly etched, and Brandoff recreates a vanished New York of Alexander’s, Blarney Stones, and Roger Grimsby and Bill Beutel on the local TV news. In the end, Brandoff makes Connie’s path to understanding himself feel well-earned. This is a dramatically satisfying and emotional resonant novel.” —Publishers Weekly
“Brandoff writes precisely about Connie’s mental state and lucidity . . . When Brandoff focuses on the details of New York City life, he establishes an atmospheric, lived-in quality . . . [Cornelius Sky’s] detailed portrait of a self-destructive character retains a haunting power.” —Kirkus Reviews
“A deftly written and inherently fascinating read from first page to last, Cornelius Sky showcases author Timothy Brandoff’s uniquely entertaining narrative storytelling style that offers a unique and original story set against the backdrop of an American metropolis teetering on the brink of ruin and in the hope of an economic, cultural, social, and political recovery.” —Midwest Book Review
Cornelius Sky is a doorman in a posh Fifth Avenue apartment building that houses New York City’s elite, including a former First Lady whose husband was assassinated while in office. It is 1974 and New York City is heading toward a financial crisis. At work, Connie prides himself on his ability to buff a marble floor better than anyone, a talent that so far has kept him from being fired for his drinking. He pushes the boundaries of his duties, partying and playing board games with the former First Lady’s lonely thirteen-year-old son in the service stairwell—the only place where the boy is not spied upon mercilessly by the tabloid press and his Secret Service detail.