Norman Keifetz, who has published three novels, had plays performed, entertained readers with many short stories, is a surprising writer. A treat for readers who know his work and for those who come upon his writing for the first time. Hes not a household name and it is puzzling why he doesnt have that kind of celebrity. If a good book is a cure for insomnia, he will keep you awake and thinking and wanting more. Mr. Keifetz has lectured on writing and the creative spirit over the years at book festivals and seminars around the country -- in little cities and big -- Glens Falls, NY, Las Cruces, NM, Cincinnati, OH, Chicago, IL --to name a few. Hes published literary criticism, poetry, and has had plays produced. Sweet, Sour, and Sad is his first collection of unpublished works. His new bi-lingual novella, The Smoking Contest (in English and French), is on press. Mr. Keifetz was married to the late Joyce Engelson, a legendary editor in book publishing.And their daughter, Mandy Keifetz, was the fiction winner of the 2010 AWP Award Series with her novel, Flea Circus.
Bash is a spy, a special kind of spy, caught up in the devious intrigue of naval Intelligence during the war in Vietnam. Hes handsome, clever, and smartessential prerequisites for honey trap assignments. He seduces foreign agents and is well aware that they welcome his intentions if only to gather intelligence of their own. What he doesnt know is that they have another purpose as wella double or triple agenda to get from him the secret he doesnt even realizes he knows. Bash lives in a world of lies, half-truths at best, as befitting his role. But this unknown secret insinuates itself to the point that he becomes awash in his own paranoia. The action careens from those spy days to the present and back againin New York, Paris, Hong Kong, London, Saigon, Washington, East Germany, culminating in the secret all had sought, a secret so hidden that it threatens his present life twenty years later.
A literary detective story about two guys from Irish Brooklyn who meet after returning from the Korean War to live a tale of charm, humor, irony, murder and tragedy, a police procedural full of puzzling twists during a period in the history of the New York Police Department ́s recovery from the shame of the Knapp commission report of corruption. A body is discovered by a vagrant in a park in Irish Brooklyn, shot in the head. Detective Noah Keefe, a tough, determined officer, gets the case and he soon learns that the victim was an honored officer in the Royal Constabulary Belfast, the Northern Island Protestant police, detested by the Irish Republican Army. Have the Catholics and Protestants of Belfast brought their fight to Brooklyn?
The trouble started when the water in the little college town of Wickstead, Pennsylvania, was found to be tainted. This aroused the citizens, led by a college professor and a decorated war veteran, Nick Adamson. He decides to go to war against the water companies. Nick is an eccentric character. He is under constant surveillance not only the local sheriff but also by the state police, who suspect him of being the illusive sniper who had earlier shot and wounded state officials after they had signed off on the senseless slaughter of dozens of blackbirds. The story hangs on whether or not they will finally arrest him.
Belle Fortman is a feisty, curious, intelligent woman who is determined to break into a traditional world controlled by men who will go to extremes to exclude herprofessional baseball. Against all odds, shes determined to become the first woman umpire in the Major Leagues. In this endeavor, she faces obstaclesfrom setbacks in umpiring school to travails in her life and on the field as she moves up the minor league system, from tank town sandlot games to Triple A, longing for an assignment in the Majors. Along the way, Belle falls in love and runs into characters readers get to know so well that theyll feel theyve actually met them. The author has the uncanny skill to make the strangest, most unlikely characters seem so compellingly real.
He saw Ta Paradas adobe in the distance, a small house, white-washed. He knew all adobes were deceptive: bigger inside than one would imagine seeing the exterior, even standing right in front. But first he went to see something else, something hed neglected the last time. He saw immediately it was a cemetery with all the ornamental charm even whimsy you might find in the heart of Mexico and, typical of such spots, he had trouble finding his graves. There was, of course, no symmetry to the stone markers. Some lay south and some lay east and some just athwart each other. The rows between the headstones were spastic zigzags, hardly parallel lines. Matt smiled inside, thinking with what mockery this burial ground might be greeted by the groundkeepers at the National Cemetery at Arlington, Virginia. Walking around for a while, along the angled pathways, he came upon them. The graves. There was a headstone for Ajax. A Cross and a Star of David had been cut into his stone. Maybe, for her husbands grave, Ta Parada had been memorializing the little church in Remedios that always fascinated tourists with its famous star underlaying a cross on its front wall. On a grave beside it there was only a carved angel. It read : Tres Concupisente Franklin. My God! She had named him Tres! Tres from her old stories of our family and our long ago relative. Matt couldnt hold back the tears. The lump in throat grew, and finally he put his head in his hands and sobbed. When he recovered and looked at the stone again he was puzzled to see fresh flowers on both graves; and pebbles atop both headstones. When he got the chance, if it seemed okay, he would have to ask Ta Parada about the flowers and pebbles. Or was Mr. Piedo simply doing his job as Ta Paradas representative, in life and in death? Did he come with the flowers every Monday, like today? Perhaps the flowers were from yesterday. The little pebbles could have been there for months. Matt wondered if this was the Redheads' way, decorating graves with flowers and pebbles? Like the quick burials and death shrouds in place of coffins? These werent old Mexican customs, but certainly the headstones in this cemetery were dominated by crosses and lovely stone statues of the Holy Mother. He suddenly recalled that in Montevideo he had seen pebbles on top of a gravestone. But he didnt know what it signified. He was starting to leave when he noticed that on the side of Ajax's stone there was lightly etched a seven-piece ceremonial candlestick holder. He looked on the side of Tres Concupisente's stone marker. Inscribed there were the wordssweet natured in Spanish. He went around the cemetery, studied the symbols on the other graves-- besides the crosses and holy images an occasional engraving of the opened Tablets of the Ten Commandments appeared. Dear Jesus and Mary! What are these symbols saying? Were these so-called Redheads descendants of conversos? Impossible! But maybe not. Hadnt his friend, Steve Steamer once said that conversos might have been in the expedition that settled Reino de Dios as well as Remedios! Matt moved toward the little house, trying to puzzle it out. He could picture the church in Remedios with its star and cross. Was it only old Mr. Steamers Steves great, great, great Grandfather -- doing or was there something encryptic there, something secretly acknowledged? Or was the knowledge all unconscious, an incomprehensible ancestral wailing of some centuries-old truth? He knocked on the door, lightly because of Ta Paradas famous hearing. The family had always marvelled at how acutely she could hear They said she heard better than a dog, perhaps as good as any creature that roams in the night. No answer. Again, louder. Still silence. The door opened when he turned the knob. The house felt warm as though it were presently being lived in. He suspected she was home, but had decided not to answer. She had never had a phone in this house, much to the fami
Sparks fly in this amusing bi-lingual love story between an American man who can’t stand to be in smoking environments and a French woman who simply refuses to give up cigarettes. He’s a writer, she a stage director trained in the Russian theatre, but at present with no dramatic company of her own. They meet in Paris at a time when smoking has been banned in France but also at the very moment a well-financed commercial effort is afoot to bring back the past. Cigarette and cosmetic companies unite to rekindle the joie de vivre of smoking in the public’s consciousness. In a homage the past, the business interests stage a national smoking contest for women and our heroine decides to become a contestant –much to the irritation of her American lover. Their relationship is already in distress as our heroine suspects that her lover has betrayed her with at least two women.
Norman Keifetz, who has published three novels, had plays performed, entertained readers with many short stories, is a surprising writer. A treat for readers who know his work and for those who come upon his writing for the first time. He's not a household name and it is puzzling why he doesn't have that kind of celebrity. If a good book is a cure for insomnia, he will keep you awake and thinking and wanting more. Mr. Keifetz has lectured on writing and the creative spirit over the years at book festivals and seminars around the country -- in little cities and big -- Glens Falls, NY, Las Cruces, NM, Cincinnati, OH, Chicago, IL --to name a few. He's published literary criticism, poetry, and has had plays produced. Sweet, Sour, and Sad is his first collection of unpublished works. His new bi-lingual novella, The Smoking Contest (in English and French), is on press. Mr. Keifetz was married to the late Joyce Engelson, a legendary editor in book publishing.And their daughter, Mandy Keifetz, was the fiction winner of the 2010 AWP Award Series with her novel, Flea Circus.
The trouble started when the water in the little college town of Wickstead, Pennsylvania, was found to be tainted. This aroused the citizens, led by a college professor and a decorated war veteran, Nick Adamson. He decides to go to war against the water companies. Nick is an eccentric character. He is under constant surveillance not only the local sheriff but also by the state police, who suspect him of being the illusive sniper who had earlier shot and wounded state officials after they had signed off on the senseless slaughter of dozens of blackbirds. The story hangs on whether or not they will finally arrest him.
Bash is a spy, a special kind of spy, caught up in the devious intrigue of naval Intelligence during the war in Vietnam. Hes handsome, clever, and smartessential prerequisites for honey trap assignments. He seduces foreign agents and is well aware that they welcome his intentions if only to gather intelligence of their own. What he doesnt know is that they have another purpose as wella double or triple agenda to get from him the secret he doesnt even realizes he knows. Bash lives in a world of lies, half-truths at best, as befitting his role. But this unknown secret insinuates itself to the point that he becomes awash in his own paranoia. The action careens from those spy days to the present and back againin New York, Paris, Hong Kong, London, Saigon, Washington, East Germany, culminating in the secret all had sought, a secret so hidden that it threatens his present life twenty years later.
Sparks fly in this amusing bi-lingual love story between an American man who can’t stand to be in smoking environments and a French woman who simply refuses to give up cigarettes. He’s a writer, she a stage director trained in the Russian theatre, but at present with no dramatic company of her own. They meet in Paris at a time when smoking has been banned in France but also at the very moment a well-financed commercial effort is afoot to bring back the past. Cigarette and cosmetic companies unite to rekindle the joie de vivre of smoking in the public’s consciousness. In a homage the past, the business interests stage a national smoking contest for women and our heroine decides to become a contestant –much to the irritation of her American lover. Their relationship is already in distress as our heroine suspects that her lover has betrayed her with at least two women.
Sin celdas de fierro contigo llevar de grilletes tus manos. Es mejor, ser la voz sutíl que atraviese las fronteras, que mustia alma reducida a un espacio. Amar, es no sentir vacío, porque las razones sobran. Como aquel viajero sin saber, lo que el horizonte le depara. La memoria de unos brazos, la dulce insensatez de un amante y ese tictac del reloj que no se detiene. Sovrapponendo le nostre orme sulla coltre della natura. Stando insieme unicamente, anche nella elocuenza del silenzio. Come luci fluttuanti fatte di solo spirito.
A literary detective story about two guys from Irish Brooklyn who meet after returning from the Korean War to live a tale of charm, humor, irony, murder and tragedy, a police procedural full of puzzling twists during a period in the history of the New York Police Department ́s recovery from the shame of the Knapp commission report of corruption. A body is discovered by a vagrant in a park in Irish Brooklyn, shot in the head. Detective Noah Keefe, a tough, determined officer, gets the case and he soon learns that the victim was an honored officer in the Royal Constabulary Belfast, the Northern Island Protestant police, detested by the Irish Republican Army. Have the Catholics and Protestants of Belfast brought their fight to Brooklyn?
He saw Ta Paradas adobe in the distance, a small house, white-washed. He knew all adobes were deceptive: bigger inside than one would imagine seeing the exterior, even standing right in front. But first he went to see something else, something hed neglected the last time. He saw immediately it was a cemetery with all the ornamental charm even whimsy you might find in the heart of Mexico and, typical of such spots, he had trouble finding his graves. There was, of course, no symmetry to the stone markers. Some lay south and some lay east and some just athwart each other. The rows between the headstones were spastic zigzags, hardly parallel lines. Matt smiled inside, thinking with what mockery this burial ground might be greeted by the groundkeepers at the National Cemetery at Arlington, Virginia. Walking around for a while, along the angled pathways, he came upon them. The graves. There was a headstone for Ajax. A Cross and a Star of David had been cut into his stone. Maybe, for her husbands grave, Ta Parada had been memorializing the little church in Remedios that always fascinated tourists with its famous star underlaying a cross on its front wall. On a grave beside it there was only a carved angel. It read : Tres Concupisente Franklin. My God! She had named him Tres! Tres from her old stories of our family and our long ago relative. Matt couldnt hold back the tears. The lump in throat grew, and finally he put his head in his hands and sobbed. When he recovered and looked at the stone again he was puzzled to see fresh flowers on both graves; and pebbles atop both headstones. When he got the chance, if it seemed okay, he would have to ask Ta Parada about the flowers and pebbles. Or was Mr. Piedo simply doing his job as Ta Paradas representative, in life and in death? Did he come with the flowers every Monday, like today? Perhaps the flowers were from yesterday. The little pebbles could have been there for months. Matt wondered if this was the Redheads' way, decorating graves with flowers and pebbles? Like the quick burials and death shrouds in place of coffins? These werent old Mexican customs, but certainly the headstones in this cemetery were dominated by crosses and lovely stone statues of the Holy Mother. He suddenly recalled that in Montevideo he had seen pebbles on top of a gravestone. But he didnt know what it signified. He was starting to leave when he noticed that on the side of Ajax's stone there was lightly etched a seven-piece ceremonial candlestick holder. He looked on the side of Tres Concupisente's stone marker. Inscribed there were the wordssweet natured in Spanish. He went around the cemetery, studied the symbols on the other graves-- besides the crosses and holy images an occasional engraving of the opened Tablets of the Ten Commandments appeared. Dear Jesus and Mary! What are these symbols saying? Were these so-called Redheads descendants of conversos? Impossible! But maybe not. Hadnt his friend, Steve Steamer once said that conversos might have been in the expedition that settled Reino de Dios as well as Remedios! Matt moved toward the little house, trying to puzzle it out. He could picture the church in Remedios with its star and cross. Was it only old Mr. Steamers Steves great, great, great Grandfather -- doing or was there something encryptic there, something secretly acknowledged? Or was the knowledge all unconscious, an incomprehensible ancestral wailing of some centuries-old truth? He knocked on the door, lightly because of Ta Paradas famous hearing. The family had always marvelled at how acutely she could hear They said she heard better than a dog, perhaps as good as any creature that roams in the night. No answer. Again, louder. Still silence. The door opened when he turned the knob. The house felt warm as though it were presently being lived in. He suspected she was home, but had decided not to answer. She had never had a phone in this house, much to the fami
Belle Fortman is a feisty, curious, intelligent woman who is determined to break into a traditional world controlled by men who will go to extremes to exclude herprofessional baseball. Against all odds, shes determined to become the first woman umpire in the Major Leagues. In this endeavor, she faces obstaclesfrom setbacks in umpiring school to travails in her life and on the field as she moves up the minor league system, from tank town sandlot games to Triple A, longing for an assignment in the Majors. Along the way, Belle falls in love and runs into characters readers get to know so well that theyll feel theyve actually met them. The author has the uncanny skill to make the strangest, most unlikely characters seem so compellingly real.
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