Please welcome Jerome Mark Antil author of Mamma's Moon
Jerome Mark Antil will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Mamma's Moon
by Jerome Mark Antil
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GENRE: Literary Fiction
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INTERVIEW:
1. What or who inspired you to start writing?
My father was a fabulous story teller. When I was young, I would ride with him for hours on end and he always told stories. We’d stop and fish for an hour from a creek bank. In eighth grade Mrs. Doxtator wrote on my composition. “This is the loveliest autumn I’ve ever read about.”
2. What elements are necessary components for this genre?
Exhaustive research. If it doesn’t sound believable – it will be a turnoff.
3. How did you come up with your idea for your novel?
My life was threatened in a Walmart. I used that instance for Chapter One – and wove it into a sequel for my One More Last Dance.
4. What expertise did you bring to your writing?
I’ve written for industry all of my early career. I bring to my writing the discipline of putting words on paper each and every day.
5. What would you want your readers to know about you that might not be in your bio?
I’m dedicated to literacy in schools and have donated a great deal of money, thousands of books and a lot of time to that end…lecturing…sponsoring writing contests.
6. As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans?
I’m writing a trilogy – book one will come out in November. I’m thinking a sequel for Mamma’s Moon, as well. I’d like to write something that matters, a book that might help the world.
7. If you could be one of the characters from this book, who would it be and why?
Peck, he is a free spirit who is astutely aware of everything around him. He has a thirst for knowledge. He has good sex.
8. Can you give us a sneak peek into this book?
Gabe, the aging retired black army captain is arrested for murder. His 25-year-old friend Peck ran away from home at 9. His fiancé wants to meet his momma. Gabe encourages him to go back into the bayous and swamps and search out his past. He does, while Gabe fights his court battle.
9. Do you belong to a critique group? If so how does this help or hinder your writing?
I have a dozen or so readers with daily feedback. It really helps for clarity and direction.
10. When did you first decide to submit your work? Please tell us what or who encouraged you to take this big step?
I was working with a freelance editor of Simon and Shuster. She encouraged me to INDIE publish as I was excellent in marketing. I sent my first novel to the president of Barnes and Noble, A top exec from there called me at home, asked if I was going to write more books – told me I was a storyteller – and they wanted me in their stores. She arranged a distributor for my works.
11. What is the best and worst advice you ever received? (regarding writing or publishing)
Hemingway’s – write what you know, count your words – rewriting is writing.
12. Do you outline your books or just start writing?
I outline an ending – and then I write a path to it.
13. How do you maintain your creativity?
Exhaustive research – books can write themselves.
14. Who is your favorite character in the book. Can you tell us why?
Lily Cup. She’s got balls. She is smart as a whip, has more money than good taste – drinks rye and gets horny before murder trials.
15. Are your plotting bunnies, angels or demons?
I have no idea what this means.
16. Anything else you might want to add?
Check out my boyhood home – Delphi Falls Park.
BLURB:
A bond that can only happen on a dance floor happened in a cafe off Frenchman Street among four unlikely characters: a man who was about to die; his friend, an illiterate Cajun French yardman; and two of the most successful women in New Orleans.
Aging Captain Gabriel Jordan, retired, was given two months to live, three months before he met "Peck"--Boudreau Clemont Finch--a groundskeeper on the back lawn of his hospice on Bayou Carencro, Louisiana. It was at the hospice that Gabe told Peck his dream of seeing the Newport Jazz Festival before he died. They became friends, and Peck offered to help grant his wish by taking him there.
And they began their journey.
It quickly became a journey with complications and setbacks. They saved each other many times, but they were in turn saved by two extraordinary women: Sasha (Michelle Lissette), a real estate agent in New Orleans's posh Garden District, and her best friend, Lily Cup (Lily Cup Lorelei Tarleton), a criminal attorney.
Less than a year before the events in Mamma's Moon, Gabe and Peck wandered into Charlie's Blue Note, a small jazz bar in a side alley just off Frenchman Street, where the music was live and mellow and the dancing warm and sensual.
Here they encountered Sasha and Lily Cup, and amid the music, the dancing, the food, the flirting, and the cigar smoke, the four formed an unusual and lasting friendship that would see them each through a series of crises, disappointments, life-threatening situations, and moments of great joy and satisfaction.
Aging Captain Gabriel Jordan, retired, was given two months to live, three months before he met "Peck"--Boudreau Clemont Finch--a groundskeeper on the back lawn of his hospice on Bayou Carencro, Louisiana. It was at the hospice that Gabe told Peck his dream of seeing the Newport Jazz Festival before he died. They became friends, and Peck offered to help grant his wish by taking him there.
And they began their journey.
It quickly became a journey with complications and setbacks. They saved each other many times, but they were in turn saved by two extraordinary women: Sasha (Michelle Lissette), a real estate agent in New Orleans's posh Garden District, and her best friend, Lily Cup (Lily Cup Lorelei Tarleton), a criminal attorney.
Less than a year before the events in Mamma's Moon, Gabe and Peck wandered into Charlie's Blue Note, a small jazz bar in a side alley just off Frenchman Street, where the music was live and mellow and the dancing warm and sensual.
Here they encountered Sasha and Lily Cup, and amid the music, the dancing, the food, the flirting, and the cigar smoke, the four formed an unusual and lasting friendship that would see them each through a series of crises, disappointments, life-threatening situations, and moments of great joy and satisfaction.
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EXCERPT:
Did you murder the kid, Gabe?” Lily Cup asked. The aging army captain, veteran of Korea and Vietnam, lowered his newspaper just enough to see over the entertainment page.
“Close the door, honey, AC’s on,” Gabe said.
In a tight, black skirt with a tailored matching waistcoat and white Nike walking shoes, she leaned and propped a black leather briefcase against the wall by the door. She stood like an exasperated tomboy, adjusting and refastening the diamond brooch on her lapel.
“I heard you’ve been walking with a cane, dancing man. What’s that all about? You’ve never carried a cane. You jazz dance for hours a couple of nights a week and Sasha tells me you started carrying one everywhere you go when you don’t need one. It’s smelling pretty premeditated to me, Gabe. What’s up with the cane thing?”
“Does Sasha know about this morning?”
“I haven’t told her anything. She’d have a canary.”
Gabe lifted the paper again to read.
“I need to know if it was murder,” Lily Cup said.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Gabe said.
He closed the paper, folded it in half, and in half again. Dropping it on the arm of the chair, he stood and left the room.
“Define murder,” he said from the kitchen.
She tossed a handbag and white driving gloves onto the other chair, lifted Chanel sunglasses to the top of her head.
“Gee, I’ll have to think on this one. Hmmm…Oh, I know. How about the police have a cane with blood on it and there’s a dead man.”
“It’s a walking stick. My cane is over by the door.”
“Well now it’s a goddamned murder weapon. They checked for prints, and yours are the only prints on it, and their guess is the lab will say the blood has his DNA.”
Gabe came out with a coffee urn in one hand and his finger and thumb through two empty cup handles. He held the cups out for her to take one.
“No more,” Gabe said.
“You’re rather nonchalant for the spot you’re in. Why’d you clam up on me like that at the precinct? It didn’t set well with any of them. The DA entered a charge of second-degree murder. The police chief put out a warrant for you from lunch at Brennan’s.”
He held the empty cups closer to her.
“Just made it. Chicory and cinnamon.”
“If you had television you’d have seen it—‘Daylight killing on St. Charles Avenue.’ It’s all over the news, freaking out the DA and the Visitors Bureau. No telling how many videos from streetcars going by will wind up on You Tube.”
“That’s enough,” Gabe said.
“People can live with violence after dark. That’s expected in any city, but when it’s in broad daylight, forget it. The DA pushed for an early docket with a magistrate and it’s Tulane and Broad for you at nine a.m. tomorrow.”
“What’s Tulane and Broad?”
“Magistrate Court. Congratulations, Gabe, you made the big time. You have to appear before a magistrate to hear the second-degree murder charge against you.”
She took an empty cup in one hand, pinched his arm with the other.
“Look me in the eye and swear it wasn’t murder,” Lily Cup said.
“This some kind of technique they teach at Harvard Law, Miss Tarleton?”
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
JEROME MARK ANTIL writes in several genres. He has been called a “greatest generation’s Mark Twain,” a “write what you know Ernest Hemingway,” and “a sensitive Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.” It’s been said his work reads like a Norman Rockwell painting. Among his writing accomplishments, several titles in his The Pompey Hollow Book Club historical fiction series about growing up in the shadows of WWII have been honored. An ‘Authors and Writers’ Book of the Year Award and ‘Writer of the Year’ at Syracuse University for The Pompey Hollow Book Club novel; Hemingway, Three Angels, and Me, won SILVER in the UK as second-best novel.
Foreword’s Book of the Year Finalist for The Book of Charlie – historical fiction and The Long Stem is in the Lobby – nonfiction humor. Library Journal selected Hemingway, Three Angels and Me for best reads during Black History Month.
Before picking up the pen, Antil spent his professional career writing and marketing for the business world. In this role, he lectured at universities - Cornell, St. Edward’s, and Southern Methodist. His inspirations have been John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, and Ernest Hemingway.
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE:
Jerome Mark Antil will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteWhat was your inspiration for the story? Congratulations on the release.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the Angel's blog. I hope you have a great tour. Allana Angel
ReplyDeleteGreat post and I appreciate getting to find out about another great book. Thanks for all you do and for the hard work you put into this. Greatly appreciated!
ReplyDeleteThank you for introducing me to this book.
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