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Showing posts from 2015

Goodreads 5 Star Review for Clifford and Claudia

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Clifford and Claudia AnnLoretta’s Review 5 Star Review on Goodreads Dec 31, 2015 I dearly love to be knocked out of my expectations! I was fortunate enough to get a copy of this constantly moving, unrelentingly challenging, bemusing, amusing, hurtful, charming novel as a special offer for my Kindle, just when I needed a break. And what an enjoyable book it is. It deserves your full attention, it demands your full attention. It's not a lightweight bit of fluff, it's too human (?) to be that. Did Charles come from where he said he did? I don't know. Was the family he ended up with who they seemed to be? I don't know. But Charles is as convincing a character as I've met in a long time, there's never a moment when he's weakly portrayed, when the author wasn't living in his skin so that we could care about Charles, love with him, laugh with him, be in pain with him. When somebody else has read it, I'd love to talk about whether an

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (I am)

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I first read sections of this book as a child (7 or 8), tricked by its title. At the time I think it is meant for someone like me, pick it from the shelf at a friend's house. I don't understand most of what I read, but I do sense the emotional violence, the extreme tension. It is real. I can feel it. And it comes off the page. A remarkable discovery.  I have since re-read the book many times, seen the movie with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and seen the play on Broadway with Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner. It remains my favorite stage play and one of my favorite books in my library.  But nothing stays with me like that first time I pull it off the shelf as a child, get ripped open, exposed to the raw and emotional possibilities of words on the page. If any book has influenced the depths of my writing, this one has. My books on Amazon   |   Subscribe to this site   |   Contac t me   

Words - J.D. Salinger

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A lot of people, especially this one psychoanalyst guy they have here, keeps asking me if I'm going to apply myself when I go back to school next September. It's such a stupid question, in my opinion. I mean how do you know what you're going to do until you do it? The answer is, you don't. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it's a stupid question. - J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye My books on Amazon   |   Subscribe to this site   |   Contac t me   

Words - Toni Morrison

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Outdoors, we knew, was the real terror of life. The threat of being outdoors surfaced frequently in those days. Every possibility of excess was curtailed with it. If somebody ate too much, he could end up outdoors. If somebody used too much coal, he could end up outdoors. People could gamble themselves outdoors, drink themselves outdoors. Sometimes mothers put their sons outdoors, and when that happened, regardless of what the son had done, all sympathy was with him. - Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye My books on Amazon   |   Subscribe to this site   |   Contac t me   

Words - Truman Capote

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Just before I taped him, Mr. Clutter asked me - and these were his last words - wanted to know how his wife was, if she was all right, and I said she was fine, she was ready to go to sleep, and I told him it wasn't long till morning, and how in the morning somebody would find them, and then all of it, me and Dick and all, would seem like something they dreamed. I wasn't kidding him. I didn't want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat. - Truman Capote, In Cold Blood My books on Amazon   |   Subscribe to this site   |   Contac t me   

Words - Edward Albee

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Nobody's asking you to remember every single goddamn Warner Brother's epic...just one! One single little epic! Bette Davis has peritonitis in the end...she's got this big black fright wig she wears all through the picture and she gets peritonitis, and she's married to Joseph Cotten or something... *** I said I was impressed, Martha. I'm beside myself with jealousy. What do you want me to do, throw up? *** Alright... what do you want me to say? Do you want me to say it’s funny, so you can contradict me and say it’s sad? Or do you want me to say it’s sad so you can turn around and say no, it’s funny. You can play that damn little game any way you want to, you know! *** Martha is 108... years old. She weighs somewhat more than that. *** George is bogged down in the History Department. He’s an old bog in the History Department, that’s what George is. A bog. . . . A fen. . . . A G.D. swamp. Ha, ha, ha, HA! A SWAMP! Hey, swamp!

Words - Larry Mitchell

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My only company was an obese, ancient cat I inherited when the ancient Irish lady upstairs was evicted. The cat barely moved. Once a day she dragged herself to her food where she fell asleep with her head in the dish. - Larry Mitchell, My Life as a Mole My books on Amazon   |   Subscribe to this site   |   Contac t me   

Words - Charles Bukowski

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Lydia looked good. The light came through the curtains and shone on her. She had an orange in her hand and was tossing it into the air. The orange spun through the sunlit morning.  - Charles Bukowski, Women My books on Amazon   |   Subscribe to this site   |   Contac t me   

5 Star Review from Amazon Hall of Fame Top 100 Reviewer Grady Harp - The Story of Teddy and Eddie

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The Story of Teddie and Eddie 5 out of 5 stars  ' Reality is a slippery demon.' By Grady Harp HALL OF FAME TOP 100 REVIEWER VINE VOICE on October 3, 2015. Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. Author James Halat has experience from several locations of living. He was born in New Jersey, lived in New York City, and now lives in Tokyo Japan. To date he has published three books - SYNCOPATED RHYTHM, CLIFFORD AND CLAUDIA and THE STORY OF TEDDY AND EDDIE. Few authors can handle same sex stories as well as James as those who have had the pleasure of reading SYNCOPATED RHYTHM especially will witness. But fine as that story is, it s a novella. His full-length novel CLIFFORD AND CLAUDIA proved that he can interplay gay characters with aplomb and make his story so universally relevant that the reader can simply sit back and enjoy the entertainment. He carries that gift, developed even more fully, into this new novel THE STORY OF TEDDY AND EDDIE. James’ ele

5 Star Review from Amazon Hall of Fame Top 100 Reviewer Grady Harp - Clifford and Claudia

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Clifford and Claudia 5 out of 5 stars  "It takes my keen eye no time at all to discern that Clifford is prettier than Claudia."  By Grady Harp HALL OF FAME TOP 100 REVIEWER VINE VOICE on September 26, 2015. Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. Author James Halat has experience from several locations of living. He was born in New Jersey, lived in New York City, and now lives in Tokyo Japan. To date he has published two books - SYNCOPATED RHYTHM and CLIFFORD AND CLAUDIA. Few authors can handle same sex stories as well as James as those who have had the pleasure of reading SYNCOPATED RHYTHM will witness. But fine as that story is, it is a novella. Now in a full-length novel he proves that he can interplay gay characters with aplomb and make his story so universally relevant that the reader can simply sit back and enjoy the entertainment. And in his novel there is entertainment aplenty! An example of his technique of placing italicized asides - a me

5 Star Review from Amazon Hall of Fame Top 100 Reviewer Grady Harp - Syncopated Rhythm

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Syncopated Rhythm 5 out of 5 stars  ‘I have a feeling of being incomplete with this place.’  By Grady Harp HALL OF FAME TOP 100 REVIEWER VINE VOICE on September 25, 2015. Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. Author James Halat has experience form several locations of living. He was born in New Jersey, lived in New York City, and now lives in Toyko Japan. To date he has published two books – SYNCOPATED RHYTHM and CLIFFORD AND CLAUDIA. Knowing this biographical data SYNCOPATED RHYTHM suggests a memoir of sorts, or at least a character the author has created whom he knows quite well – the narrator – no name, just a kind of everyman who is lost in tangential relationships and incidents. His gift at creating conversations, whether overheard or participating, is unique. The language is so appropriately raw when needed and so fragile in other passages. A bit of ‘for instance’, a conversation of a family in a car trip: ‘“Geez, look at the traffic. We’ll be stuck here for a

Short excerpt from The Story of Teddy and Eddie

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The Story of Teddy and Eddie These thoughts come to me this way in the middle of the night, when I am half asleep and exposed. Never this way in the light of day, where I can see them, maybe have a fighting chance. Shadows appear in the mirror, withering shades of gray. They form somewhere beneath the glass, clouding my reflection. I close my eyes. When I open them, the shadows are gone. My eyes play tricks on me. It wouldn’t be the first time. Reality is a slippery demon. My books on Amazon   |   Subscribe to this site   |   Contac t me   

Short excerpt from Clifford and Claudia by James Halat

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Clifford and Claudia The Port Authority compares largely to the Bucky Ball Interlink, South Side, a hub for Woody Vine malcontents, freeloaders, hustlers, pimps, pickpockets, and philosophers. There, too, is a strong undercurrent of hope filtered through a comb of despair. Weary expressions come and go, some are idle, sniffing elixirs for their hunger, anxiety, boredom. I have a sense that the people who spend time here know something I will never know, knowledge, experience, preserved and locked away like the paved over history of the city streets. My books on Amazon   |   Subscribe to this site   |   Contac t me   

Short excerpt from Syncopated Rhythm by James Halat

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Syncopated Rhythm A part of me, no matter what the situation, is a little sad. It never goes away. I don’t ever remember not carrying it around with me. It feels like a second set of lungs that have trouble breathing. Sometimes I think I can hear them as they struggle to exhale. Many nights I go to sleep listening to this sound. My books on Amazon   |   Subscribe to this site   |   Contac t me