TWO CHAPTERS FROM SECTION THREE of my SWEEPING NOVEL-IN-PROGRESS KOOTCHIE TOWERS (featuring a cameo appearance by Harold Brodkey)

. TRACK FOUR / SIDE THREE: THE ROAD TO QUASAR I sat up on the back seat of Rodney’s Buick and tried to gather my wits and bearings.  It was very dark and seemed very late and rather cold and I wondered how long I’d been alone in the car and to where the car had been driven.  Jillene’s cake was flat in the box I’d been using as a pillow and I opened the flattened box and scooped some smashed cake out and fed myself with voluptuous intensity, the best cake I had ever tasted. I was so hungry … Continue reading TWO CHAPTERS FROM SECTION THREE of my SWEEPING NOVEL-IN-PROGRESS KOOTCHIE TOWERS (featuring a cameo appearance by Harold Brodkey)

ANOTHER DELIGHTFUL CHAPTER from my NOVEL IN PROGRESS “KOOTCHIE TOWERS” (an experience in layered, sometimes dense, sometimes secretive, clarity)

    CHAPTER SIX: MYRVA & BENJI The year is 1974 and our skittish hero, progressive college prof Benji Schamansky, bestselling author of “The Physics of Lit,” isn’t quite sure if he’s been dumped, by his Lover/ Obsession Prentis Bel, as he drives Prentis’ “old school friend,” Myrva, home from an ambiguous fondue dinner,  at Prentis’ pad, in his customized VW van…  Myrva produced an unopened bottle of Kahlùa from her capacious purse and pressed the bottle’s cool glass side to Benji’s cheek as the road hummed and swerved under them and Myrva said, “Let’s play my favorite drinking game. … Continue reading ANOTHER DELIGHTFUL CHAPTER from my NOVEL IN PROGRESS “KOOTCHIE TOWERS” (an experience in layered, sometimes dense, sometimes secretive, clarity)

KOOTCHIE TOWERS EXCERPT #1 (first three chapters)

TRACK ONE/ SIDE ONE: PRENTIS & BENJI   Cowper Lundgren slipped into Benjamin Schamansky’s office with loafered stealth. Such loafered stealth that he was able to stand and watch Schamansky enjoying a smutty undergraduate humor magazine for a full minute before Schamansky noticed he wasn’t alone. Looking up and to his left suddenly Schamansky jumped out of his skin, catapulting the magazine against the acoustical foam in the ceiling, where it left a little dent. Lundgren’s hands were clasped behind his very straight back and the signature wave in his full head of hair gleamed white like his smile as … Continue reading KOOTCHIE TOWERS EXCERPT #1 (first three chapters)

KOOTCHIE TOWERS EXCERPT #4

Let’s take a stylistic trip across Literary History, back to when Novels were Novels, Writers were Writers, and Sex was Pretty Fucking Good. The writing in/of these chapters was so fluid, round, nutritive and sweet that I’m posting this only minutes after the last round of tweakings. The year is 1974 and Kyndall, whose man Skip is in the process of being stolen by usurper Prentis Bel, is having a weird day… – KOOTCHIE TOWERS excerpt     TRACK TWO/SIDE TWO: KYNDALL   Kyndall was sitting in bed, topless, arm underscoring her welty tits and the vertical scar between them, … Continue reading KOOTCHIE TOWERS EXCERPT #4

EXCERPT from KOOTCHIE TOWERS (a Novel in Progress)

    In this chapter, from the third section of the book, we see existence through the eyes of Sierra Temple (a classmate of Gloria Steinem’s), a privileged sophomore at Smith college, in ’57     TRACK FOUR / SIDE THREE: QUASAR   All the really grandiose classical music, the stuff for cavernous auditoriums and cathedrals and opera houses, the music performed by and for crowds of roughly the same social class, always sounds like collapsing architecture to me. Magnificent buildings crashing to earth, around your head, your ears,  at a stately and balletic tempo. Every minuscule sliver, chunk, pane, … Continue reading EXCERPT from KOOTCHIE TOWERS (a Novel in Progress)

A READER (WHO IS ALSO AN ESTEEMED WRITER) WRITES

  A quick note to let you know I’m halfway through the Kootchie Towers extract you sent me, and I’m fucking lapping it up, min. I’ve just started my summer holidays and this is exactly what I needed — guaranteed laugh-out-loud (literally, frequently, most recently in the most exquisite bar in Madrid’s most exquisite barrio) extreme stimulation with dozens of tickles/prods/slaps/nudges per page. The kind of value-per-minute’s-reading nobody from the conglomerates is approaching now.  More feedback when I get through the rest, and also the other stuff you sent me. But for now: cheers for this, hermano. This has to be one of your … Continue reading A READER (WHO IS ALSO AN ESTEEMED WRITER) WRITES

KOOTCHIE TOWERS EXCERPT #3

It is 1974 and Benji Schamansky is a sideburned, aftershave-splashed, college prof with a bestselling paperback, THE PHYSICS of LIT, to his name. Benji enjoys a poorly-monitored teaching position at St. Jeff’s college of The Most Liberal Arts but all is not mellow. Recent developments  (aka The Regrettable Experiment) in his significant relationship,  the one between Benji and the beautiful and mysterious Prentis Bel, have left Benji feeling unsure about things…  if not Reality itself. The evening after the night of The Regrettable Experiment, Benji helps Prentis with the fondue after Prentis’ old college chum, Myrva, flies in from the … Continue reading KOOTCHIE TOWERS EXCERPT #3