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Showing 1 - 20 of 29 items
By Mary Hoffman. 2015
Emily Crawford, a young American wife and mother, seeks a long-overdue self-respect in this absorbing and dramatic portrait of an…
expatriate family experi-encing life in an exotic Arab culture at the start of the 1960s. Revelatory episodes unfold against the enter¬tainments of the well-to-do and influential, among the lives of ordinary citizens, and during explorations of ancient cities in the Holy Land and beyond.By Laurent Gounelle. 2012
At the end of a holiday in Bali Julian an unhappy schoolteacher decides to meet a renowned local…
healer Samtyang Through daily sessions at the wise man s house he begins to identify the source of his unhappiness as a series of simple questions and answers point to his own limiting beliefs and fears Day after day their dialogue is punctuated by live examples and challenges Julian is asked to experience on the island s mainland and its surroundings From international best-selling author Laurent Gounelle The Man Who Wanted to be Happy explores the world of new possibilities that are open to us when we discover how to break free of what prevents us from being truly happyBy Richard Paul Evans. 2014
A love story for Christmas from the #1 bestselling author of The Christmas Box and The Walk.Elise Dutton dreads the…
arrival of another holiday season. Three years earlier, her husband cheated on her with her best friend, resulting in a bitter divorce that left her alone, broken, and distrustful. Then, one November day, a stranger approaches Elise in the mall food court. Though she recognizes the man from her building, Elise has never formally met him. Tired of spending the holidays alone, the man offers her a proposition. For the next eight weeks--until the evening of December 24--he suggests that they pretend to be a couple. He draws up a contract with four rules: 1. No deep, probing personal questions2. No drama3. No telling anyone the truth about the relationship 4. The contract is void on Christmas Day The lonely Elise surprises herself by agreeing to the idea. As the charade progresses, the safety of her fake relationship begins to mend her badly broken heart. But just as she begins to find joy again, her long-held secret threatens to unravel the emerging relationship. But she might not be the only one with secrets.By Tiffany McDaniel. 2020
'Breahtaking'Vogue'So engrossing! Betty is a page-turning Appalachian coming-of-age story steeped in Cherokee history, told in undulating prose that settles right…
into you'Naoise Dolan, Sunday Times bestselling author of Exciting Times 'I felt consumed by this book. I loved it, you will love it' Daisy Johnson, Booker Prize shortlisted author of Everthing Under'I loved Betty: I fell for its strong characters and was moved by the story it portrayed' Fiona Mozley, Booker Prize shortlisted author of Elmet 'A girl comes of age against the knife.' So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a Cherokee father and white mother, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit is one of poverty and violence - both from outside the family and also, devastatingly, from within. When her family's darkest secrets are brought to light, Betty has no choice but to reckon with the brutal history hiding in the hills, as well as the heart-wrenching cruelties and incredible characters she encounters in her rural town of Breathed, Ohio.Despite the hardship she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters and her father's brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all she bears witness to, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write.A heartbreaking yet magical story, Betty is a punch-in-the-gut of a novel - full of the crushing cruelty of human nature and the redemptive power of words. 'Not a story you will soon forget' Karen Joy Fowler, Booker Prize shortlisted author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves 'Shot through with moonshine, Bible verses, and folklore, Betty is about the cruelty we inflict on one another, the beauty we still manage to find, and the stories we tell in order to survive' Eowyn Ivey, author of The Snow ChildBy Bernardo Atxaga. 2017
Nevada Days is a fictionalised account of Atxaga's nine months' stay as writer-in-residence at the Centre for Basque Studies at…
the University of Nevada. He is accompanied by his wife, Ángela, who is also doing research there, and by their two daughters. During their first few weeks, the family encounter a strange mapache (racoon), which is always staring at them from the garden, a flight of helicopters immediately overhead, a black widow spider, a warning about bears, a party of prisoners in the desert, a lake that is somehow far too calm and too blue, and, not long into their stay, the kidnap and murder of a young girl living in the house right next door.Atxaga tells us about all these strange encounters, and about his colleagues at the university, about the trips the family make to California and across the Sierra Nevada and to Lake Tahoe, but this narrative is also interspersed with accounts of his dreams, with stories from his past.Nevada Days seductively weaves together past and present, and shows us how deeply marked we are by experience and history and relationships, however fleeting or enduring, and reminds us what a very strange thing life is.Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa'I absolutely loved it - what a wise, brilliant book - so well observed on families and love and the…
secrets we keep.' RACHAEL LUCAS, author of The State of Grace***** 'I wish I could buy a ticket and visit Polperran . . . A wonderfully sweet and authentic reminder of what we should treasure in life' Meggy, Chocolate'n'Waffles***** 'Lived up to all my expectations and more. I could not stop reading . . . Lovely, touching, compelling' Sophie, Book Drunk Sophie***** 'It's only right that you do yourselves a favour and treat yourself to this book . . . Touching and heartwarming' Karen, Books and Me***** 'A novel that just felt like a literary warm hug. The world needs more kindness especially just now, and this is the perfect book' Netgalley reviewer***** 'Reminded me of Rosamund Pilcher's novels . . . I can't recommend it enough' Netgalley reviewer***** 'At the top of my book buying gift list for friends & family . . . Loved it!' Amazon reviewerStep 1. Help the lonely baker start againStep 2. Find the true calling of the village shop ownerStep 3. Call a truce on a decades-old feudStep 4. Forgive me . . . ?The locals of the Cornish village of Polperran are grieving the sudden loss of Bea Kimbrel, a cornerstone of their small community.Now her reclusive, estranged daughter Alice has turned up, keen to tie up Bea's affairs and move on. But Alice receives a strange bequest from Bea - a collection of unfinished tasks to help out those in Polperran most in need. As each little act brings her closer to understanding her mother, it also begins to offer Alice the courage to open her clamped-shut heart. Perhaps Bea's project will finally unlock the powerful secrets both women have been keeping . . . THE KINDNESS PROJECT will draw you deep into the lives of two compelling women who should never have missed their chance to say goodbye. It will break your heart - and piece it back together again . . .'I absolutely lovedit - what a wise, brilliant book - so well observed on families and love and the secrets…
we keep.' RACHAEL LUCAS, author of The State of Grace***** 'I wish I could buy a ticket and visit Polperran . . . A wonderfully sweet and authentic reminder of what we should treasure in life' Meggy, Chocolate'n'Waffles***** 'Lived up to all my expectations and more. I could not stop reading . . . Lovely, touching, compelling' Sophie, Book Drunk Sophie***** 'It's only right that you do yourselves a favour and treat yourself to this book . . . Touching and heartwarming' Karen, Books and Me***** 'A novel that just felt like a literary warm hug. The world needs more kindness especially just now, and this is the perfect book' Netgalley reviewer***** 'Reminded me of Rosamund Pilcher's novels . . . I can't recommend it enough' Netgalley reviewer***** 'At the top of my book buying gift list for friends & family . . . Loved it!' Amazon reviewerStep 1. Help the lonely baker start againStep 2. Find the true calling of the village shop ownerStep 3. Call a truce on a decades-old feudStep 4. Forgive me . . . ?The locals of the Cornish village of Polperran are grieving the sudden loss of Bea Kimbrel, a cornerstone of their small community.Now her reclusive, estranged daughter Alice has turned up, keen to tie up Bea's affairs and move on. But Alice receives a strange bequest from Bea - a collection of unfinished tasks to help out those in Polperran most in need.As each little act brings her closer to understanding her mother, it also begins to offer Alice the courage to open her clamped-shut heart. Perhaps Bea's project will finally unlock the powerful secrets both women have been keeping . . . THE KINDNESS PROJECT will draw you deep into the lives of two compelling women who should never have missed their chance to say goodbye. It will break your heart - and piece it back together again . . .By Anthony Marra. 2022
The epic tale of a brilliant woman who must reinvent herself to survive, moving from Mussolini's Italy to 1940s Los…
Angeles-a timeless story of love, deceit, and sacrifice from the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of A Constellation of Vital PhenomenaLike many before her, Maria Lagana has come to Hollywood to outrun her past. Born in Rome, where every Sunday her father took her to the cinema instead of church, Maria immigrates with her mother to Los Angeles after a childhood transgression leads to her father's arrest.Fifteen years later, on the eve of America's entry into World War II, Maria is an associate producer at Mercury Pictures, trying to keep her personal and professional lives from falling apart. Her mother won't speak to her. Her boss, a man of many toupees, has been summoned to Washington by congressional investigators. Her boyfriend, a virtuoso Chinese American actor, can't escape the studio's narrow typecasting. And the studio itself, Maria's only home in exile, teeters on the verge of bankruptcy.Over the coming months, as the bright lights go dark across Los Angeles, Mercury Pictures becomes a nexus of European émigrés: modernist poets trying their luck as B-movie screenwriters, once-celebrated architects becoming scale-model miniaturists, and refugee actors finding work playing the very villains they fled. While the world descends into war, Maria rises through a maze of conflicting politics, divided loyalties, and jockeying ambitions. But when the arrival of a stranger from her father's past threatens Maria's carefully constructed facade, she must finally confront her father's fate-and her own.Written with intelligence, wit, and an exhilarating sense of possibility, Mercury Pictures Presents spans many moods and tones, from the heartbreaking to the ecstatic. It is a love letter to life's bit players, a panorama of an era that casts a long shadow over our own, and a tour de force by a novelist whose work The Washington Post calls 'a flash in the heavens that makes you look up and believe in miracles.'By Heyoka Merrifield. 2006
In this first volume of The White Buffalo Woman Trilogy, author Heyoka Merrifield celebrates the sacredness of nature and the…
return of a culture hidden by time. Eyes of Wisdom offers a deeply moving narration of life and ceremony on the plains that is richly interwoven with Native American and other mythic traditions. The author draws inspiration from the legend of White Buffalo Woman, his vision quests, and experiences in the Sun Dance lodge.By Patricia Smith. 2012
"When They Are Done with Us" by Patricia Smith was selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories 2013,…
edited by Otto Penzler and Lisa ScottolineBrand-new stories by: Bill Loehfelm, S.J. Rozan, Ted Anthony, Todd Craig, Ashley Dawson, Bruce DeSilva, Louisa Ermelino, Binnie Kirshenbaum, Michael Largo, Mike Penncavage, Linda Nieves-Powell, Patricia Smith, Shay Youngblood, and Edward Joyce."Staten Island, the last of New York City's five boroughs to enter Akashic's noir series, severs as the setting for this exceptionally strong anthology."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)"Smith's introduction is a revelation. She knows the Island I have in my head. It was like finding a literary sibling, separated since birth."--Washington Independent"It's not enough for noir to be dark. It's got to be bad-ass. Its words, its decaying and horrible beauty have got to hit you like a spiked heel dragged from your guts to your gullet. It's got to twist the hot knife of passion in that soft space right below your belly while pumping bullets into your heart. It's got to make you bleed. Akashic Books' latest in their noir series, Staten Island Noir features some dusky and drop-dead gorgeous gems (emphasis on the dead) that do just that."--Grub Street Daily"Staten Island is the forgotten borough, lacking a subway system, left out of Jay-Z's songs, known for organized crime, bad accents, fake tans, and garbage--which makes it a rich setting for Akashic's noir series...In a thrilling tilt-a-whirl of crime and drama, editor Patricia Smith has carefully chosen writers concerned with the true nature of the small suburban borough."--Electric Literature's "The Outlet""Each story in this enjoyable collection has its own charms, if the words 'enjoyable' or 'charms' can be used with these dark tales, and each can stand-alone. However, if, like me, you had always looked at Staten Island as banal and benign, by the book's end your ideas will be forever changed."--ReviewingTheEvidence.comPatricia Smith, editor of Staten Island Noir, has won the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for her short story included in the anthology, "When They Are Done with Us."By Olga Tokarczuk. 2017
The only book in English for readers of all ages by Nobel Prize-winning novelist Olga Tokarczuk is a beautifully illustrated…
meditation on the fullness of life."Olga Tokarczuk&’s The Lost Soul, an experimental fable illustrated by Joanna Concejo and translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, resonates with our current moment. . . . What a striking, and lovely, material object it is." —New York Times"The Lost Soul, by Olga Tokarczuk and illustrator Joanna Concejo, is a quiet meditation on happiness, following a busy man who loses his soul. . . It pours a childlike sense of wonder into a once-upon-a-time tale that is already resonating with adults around the world." —The GuardianThe Lost Soul is a deeply moving reflection on our capacity to live in peace with ourselves, to remain patient, attentive to the world. It is a story that beautifully weaves together the voice of the Nobel Prize-winning Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk and the finely detailed pen-and-ink drawings of illustrator Joanna Concejo, who together create a parallel narrative universe full of secrets, evocative of another time. Here a man has forgotten what makes his heart feel full. He moves to a house away from all that is familiar to him to wait for his soul to return."Once upon a time there was a man who worked very hard and very quickly, and who had left his soul far behind him long ago. In fact his life was all right without his soul—he slept, ate, worked, drove a car and even played tennis. But sometimes he felt as if the world around him were flat, as if he were moving across a smooth page in a math book that was covered in evenly spaced squares... " —from The Lost SoulThe Lost Soul is a sublime album, a rare delicacy that will delight readers young and old."You must find a place of your own, sit there quietly and wait for your soul."Winner of the Bologna Ragazzi Award, Special Mention 2018, Prix de l'Union Internationale pour les Livres de Jeunesse (IBBY), The White Raven (IJB Munich), and the Łódź Design Festival Award.By Marek Bienczyk. 2013
In a beautifully illustrated story for adults that is playful, philosophical, and with a wink of naughtiness, two characters—the Not-So-Little-Prince…
and Prickly Pear—consider the nature of happiness.Much more than a tale of sweet indulgence, Prince in a Pastry Shop touches on a fundamental question important to us all, from preschooler to pensioner: what does it mean to be happy? Is happiness to be found in the smallest, most visceral of experiences like eating a sugar-dusted donut? Can we truly experience happiness while there is suffering in the world? Is there a great cosmic balance that demands for every happy moment there also be a moment of sorrow? Can we be happy knowing that it&’s a fleeting condition? Can we really know and understand happiness while we&’re experiencing it? "Happiness is nothing but trouble,&” says the Prince. For Prickly Pear, happiness simply tastes like a cupcake or profiterole.Writer Marek Bieńczyk, the winner of the Nike prize, the most important literature award in Poland, joins with the brilliant Polish illustrator Joanna Concejo whose detailed pencil drawings create a wonderland, where sitting at a café table morphs into a dreamscape with animals, a borderland between waking and dreaming.With a very light touch Prince in a Pastry Shop asks one of the most profound questions of our existence: is it enough to appreciate each moment of sweetness—and at what cost—or must we be active in an unforgiving world to find contentment.By Steve Paul. 2012
"Light Bulb" by Nancy Pickard was selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories 2013, edited by Otto Penzler…
and Lisa Scottoline"Kansas City, famous for its jazz, its barbecue, and its shady history, provides the venue for this solid addition to Akashic's acclaimed noir anthology series."--Publishers Weekly"Hard-used heroes and heroines seem to live a lifetime in the stories...Each one seems almost novelistic in scope. Half novels-in-waiting, half journalistic anecdotes that are equally likely to appeal to Kansas City boosters and strangers."--Kirkus Reviews"Travel has many unexpected benefits, so even if you've never had a reason to visit the city itself, you'll find Kansas City Noir surprisingly well worth the price of the ticket."--Bookgasm"Picture steam rising from a sewer grate on a rain-slicked street. The sound of footsteps comes closer and closer behind you as you walk down a dark, downtown Kansas City alley. If this scenario entices you, then you just might enjoy Kansas City Noir."--Kansas City Public Television"What we heard was REALLY GOOD. So good in fact that we picked up a copy. Now we're... getting ready to read it in one sitting."--Tony's Kansas CityBrand-new stories from: J. Malcolm Garcia, Grace Suh, Daniel Woodrell, Kevin Prufer, Matthew Eck, Philip Stephens, Catherine Browder, John Lutz, Nancy Pickard, Linda Rodriguez, Andrés Rodríguez, Mitch Brian, Nadia Pflaum, and Phong Nguyen.Steve Paul has been a writer and editor at the The Kansas City Star since 1975. Currently the arts editor, he writes about music, books, architecture, food, and, occasionally, murder. He's the author of Architecture A to Z: An Elemental, Alphabetical Guide to Kansas City's Built Environment. A former bookseller and a native of Boston, he has served as a board member and officer of the National Book Critics Circle.By Arthur Nersesian. 2006
"Nersesian is this generation's Mark Twain and the East River is his Mississippi."--Jennifer Belle, author of High Maintenance"Award-winning playwright Arthur…
Nersesian has woven an effective dramatic form through four plays, each quite funny in its own way. Each yields very powerful human results while subtly investigating the major social issues of our time."--Evangelina Borges, Trying Time PressNersesian's cult status has grown from the success of his novels, and here for the first time his equal skills as a playwright are revealed to a hungry public. Three of the four plays in East Village Tetralogy have been staged off-Broadway in New York City. The four plays included in this volume are: Rent Control East Village Writer's Bloc Plea Bargains Spare ChangeBy Maryelizabeth Hart. 2011
"When it's done right, noir is a darkly delicious thrill: smart, sharp-tongued, surprising. The knife goes in at the end…
with a twist. San Diego Noir, a new 15-story collection by some of the region's best writers, has all that going for it, and the steady supply of hometown references makes it even more fun."--San Diego Union-TribuneBrand-new stories by: T. Jefferson Parker, Jeffrey J. Mariotte, Martha Lawrence, Diane Clark & Astrid Bear, Debra Ginsberg, Morgan Hunt, Ken Kuhlken, Taffy Cannon, Don Winslow, Cameron Pierce Hughes, Lisa Brackmann, Gabriel R. Barillas, Gar Anthony Haywood, and Maria Lima.Launched with the summer '04 award-winning best seller Brooklyn Noir, Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.San Diego is home to miles of beaches, Balboa Park, a world-famous zoo, and some of the country's most expensive home and resort real estate. Yet the city also houses a few items that aren't actively promoted by the visitor's bureau: a number of the country's most corrupt politicians, border-related crimes, terrorists, and the occasional earthquakes. A noir feast!In the 50-plus years since Raymond Chandler set Playback in Esmeralda, his name for La Jolla, the population has grown by more than a million, and crime has proliferated as well. San Diego of the past and the present offers the book's contributors a rich selection of settings, from the cross on Mount Soledad to the piers of Ocean Beach, and perpetrators and victims from the residents of its wealthiest enclaves to the inhabitants of its segregated barrios.By Joe Meno. 2005
"A wonderful accomplishment. . . . The power is in the writing. Mr. Meno is a superb craftsman."-Hubert Selby Jr."The…
author moves the story along at a surprisingly fast and easy pace. The evil eyes of small-town America seem to peer from every page of Meno's claustrophobic noir, where the good and the bad are forced down the same violent paths."-Kirkus Reviews"Joe Meno writes with the energy, honesty, and emotional impact of the best punk rock."-Jim DeRogatis, pop music critic, Chicago Sun-Times"A likable winner that should bolster Meno's reputation." -Publishers Weekly"Joe Meno writes with the energy, honesty, and emotional impact of the best punk rock." -Jim DeRogatis, Chicago Sun-Times"Fans of hard-boiled pulp fiction will particularly enjoy this novel." -BooklistA young ex-con in a small Illinois town. A lonely giant with a haunted past. A beautiful girl with a troubled heart. Strange and darkly magical, How the Hula Girl Sings begins exactly where most pulp fiction usually ends, with the vivid episode of the terrible crime itself. Three years later, Luce Lemay, out on parole for the awful tragedy, does his best to finds hope: in a new job at the local Gas-N-Go; in his companion and fellow ex-con, Junior Breen, who spells out puzzling messages to the unquiet ghosts of his past; and finally, in the arms of the lovely but reckless Charlene. How the Hula Girl Sings is a suspenseful exploration of a country bright with the far-off stars of forgiveness and dark with the still-looming shadow of the death penalty.By David Hale Smith. 2013
One of Texas Monthly's "5 Things You'll be Talking about in November""All in all, the stories in Dallas Noir have…
an unsettling, slightly creepy presence that is not just appropriate but completely necessary for a collection of noir fiction. If you think Dallas is boring or white-bread -- well, perhaps you haven't gotten out much and seen the dark edges of Big D for yourself. And if you haven't, maybe you don't even want to."--Dallas Morning News"If you want to delve into the creepier sides of Dallas, this is a good start."--Lakewood/East Dallas Advocate"Dallas Noir is a fiction mosaic, showing a city of class divisions precariously held together by money, land, and false love. It also shows the expanse of noir and it's power."--MysteryPeople.com (MysteryPeople Pick of the Month)"The latest entry in Akashic Books' award-winning noir anthology series doesn't disappoint, featuring a Texas-sized serving of writing's heavy hitters and satisfying short fiction."--Criminal Class Press"There are two reasons why you should buy Dallas Noir...Reason No. 1: you'll enjoy reading it. Reason No. 2: the publisher, Akashic Books, has published these noir series all over the country."--D Magazine/FrontBurner"November 22 looms, and as the watershed nears, a new anthology of short stories sets out with a noble purpose: to make Dallas known for something more than the place where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated."--Dallas Culture Map"Yet, Dallas' almost-fleeting presence, the glaring contrasts of the stinking rich and the hapless poor, its buxom women and its Texan masculinity teamed with Hispanic folklore, all find their way into each of these 16 short stories."--The Mercury (UTD Student Newspaper)"If we are going to commemorate the milestone anniversary of the worst crime ever committed in Big D, why not precede it with a few tales of bad luck, bad choices, and bad timing?"--M. Denise C."A great collection of brand new short stories."--Kick Ass Book ReviewsFeaturing brand-new stories by: Kathleen Kent, Ben Fountain, James Hime, Harry Hunsicker, Matt Bondurant, Merritt Tierce, Daniel J. Hale, Emma Rathbone, Jonathan Woods, Oscar C. Peña, Clay Reynolds, Lauren Davis, Fran Hillyer, Catherine Cuellar, David Haynes, and J. Suzanne Frank.From the introduction by David Hale Smith:My favorite line in my favorite song about Dallas goes like this: Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes / A steel and concrete soul in a warm heart and love disguise . . . The narrator of Jimmie Dale Gilmore's perfect tune "Dallas" is coming to town as a broke dreamer with the bright lights of the big city on his mind. He's just seen the Dallas cityscape through the window of his seat on a DC-9 at night. Is he just beginning his quest? Or is he on his way home, flying out of Love Field, reminiscing after seeing the woman who stepped on him when he was down?In a country with so many interesting cities, Dallas is often overlooked-except on November 22 every year. The heartbreaking anniversary keeps coming back around in a nightmare loop, for all of us. On that day in 1963, Dallas became American noir. A permanent black scar on its history that will never be erased, no matter how many happy business stories and hit television shows arise from here. In a stark ongoing counterweight to the JFK tragedy are those two iterations of the TV show. Dallas is not a TV show. It's a real city . . . For the past forty years, my capacity to be surprised by it has not diminished one bit. I hope the stories in this collection will surprise you too.By James Greer. 2010
The Failure is a picaresque novel set in Los Angeles about two guys who conceive and badly execute a plan…
to rob a Korean check-cashing store in order to finance the prototype for an impossibly ridiculous Internet application."James Greer, one of the nimblest and most multilayered American fiction writers, has, with his latest novel The Failure, pulled off a sublime and shivery-smooth literary hat-trick-cum-emotional-gotcha. I defy anyone to come up with an equation to explain how this book's first impression as a ridiculously clever, funny crime story can gradually disclose a metanovel built from far more encyclopedic scratch only to reveal upon its conclusion a central, overriding thought so heartfelt literally it trembles your lower lip. This is one stunning piece of work." --Dennis Cooper, author of Ugly Man"James Greer's The Failure is such an unqualified success, both in conception and execution, that I have grave doubts he actually wrote it." --Steven SoderberghJames Greer is the author of the novel Artificial Light (Akashic Books), which won a California Book Award for Best Debut Novel, and the nonfiction book Guided By Voices: A Brief History (Grove Press), a biography of the band for which he once played bass guitar. He is currently working with director Steven Soderbergh on a rock musical about Cleopatra starring Catherine Zeta-Jones. He lives in Los Angeles.By Robert Arellano. 2012
"In this unsettling mix of noir and paranormal obsession . . . Arellano displays a sly, Hitchcockian touch."--Publishers Weekly"Arellano pulls…
off the not-inconsiderable feat of making the disintegration of his hero more compelling than the end of the world as we know it."--Kirkus Reviews". . . [N]othing in New Mexico has ever been more secret than Los Alamos, the Atomic City, where a diverse group of geniuses built the first atomic bombs and changed the face of the world forever. That's the setting and premise for this excellent novel by Cuban-American Robert Arellano. Disaster is about to happen and one man can avert it . . . maybe."--Globe and Mail (Canada)"Arellano's taut prose [is] a trip into the mind of a man on the edge of delirium, piecing together a puzzle at the expense of his marriage and his sanity."--AARP"Arellano writes with pure movement and action . . . Curse the Names does exactly what Hitchcock and The Twilight Zone did so well. It takes the ordinary, the benign and relatable and turns it into a fast-paced romp with unexpected events and realizations at every turn. Don't be surprised if you start this book and don't look up again until you're finished. Though its release has come at the doorstep of 2012, Arellano has definitely earned a late addition to my best books of 2011."--Ryan W. Bradley, The Nervous Breakdown"Readers, fasten your seat belts for this one. Arellano's novel is a dizzying Thompsonian concoction of noir crime thriller and alternately nightmarish and comic surreal psychodrama, spiced up with a heaping handful of local northern New Mexico flavor."--Albuquerque Journal"The nightmare intensity to Arellano's prose gets under your skin. You won't want to turn the lights out after reading it."--Charles Ardai, Edgar Award winnerHigh on a mesa in the mountains of New Mexico, a small town hides a dreadful secret. On a morning very soon there will be an accident that triggers a terrible chain reaction, and the world we know will be wiped out.James Oberhelm, a reporter at Los Alamos National Laboratory, already sees the devastation, like the skin torn off a moment that is yet to be. He believes he can prevent an apocalypse, but first James must escape the devices of a sensuous young blood tech, a lecherous old hippie, a predator in a waking nightmare, and a forsaken adobe house high away in the Sangre de Cristo mountains whose dark history entwines them all.A massive bomb is ticking beneath the sands of the Southwest, and time is running out to send a warning. James has to find a way to pass along the message--even if it ruins him.