Good Friends, Good Books, and a Sleepy Conscience: This is the Ideal Life!
Cocteau’s Invitation
By Erik Martiny
260 pages; list price: $16.95 US
ISBN: 978-1-955823-08-1
Release date: September 2, 2023
Literature
From the viewpoint of the first narrator in Cocteau’s Invitation, Mr. Hearse has lived a neat and tidy life, one of convention, of order, without even a hint of the existential angst that plagues the narrator. Indeed, the narrator, a fifty-year-old teacher who is hopelessly entangled in an erotic affair with a student in her final year of school, is a disciple of Rabelais, Shakespeare, Joyce, Beckett, Nabokov, Kristeva, and Cixous.
But when the narrator discovers an invitation from Jean Cocteau hidden away in a small wooden casket in the attic of Mr. Hearse’s house, he realizes that he was mistaken about the life Mr. Hearse has lived. The latter two-thirds of the novel is devoted to the strange but compelling relationship between Mr. Hearse and Jean Cocteau. Mr. Hearse, as the actor of his tale, now becomes the narrator, but it is Jean Cocteau who is the Director of the narrative. It is Cocteau who sets up the encounter between Mr. Hearse and a modern-day bearded Tiresias. It is Cocteau who orchestrates the meeting on the Mirabeau Bridge. And Cocteau is the reason for travelling to Siam.
By the end, of course, the reader understands that the reality of the fifty-year-old teacher presented in the beginning and the reality of Mr. Hearse’s life are mirror images of each other, a fractured, fractal mirroring, to be sure, like a Picasso painting, where the boundaries between time and space are blurred. But that is exactly what we should expect in a novel in which Jean Cocteau resides as a character.
One Last Dance with Lawrence Welk & Other Stories
By Peter Damian Bellis
197 pages; list price: $10.95 US
ISBN: 978-1-955823-99-9 Originally released in 1996. This enhanced second edition includes two additional stories.
Second edition release date: June 10, 2022.
Short Stories/Literature
The stories in One Last Dance With Lawrence Welk & Other Stories give us a glimpse of a surreal world inhabited by off-beat yet heart-warming characters. It is a world where anything can happen. A young boy from Minnesota brings two ghosts together through music, a wealthy gadabout recalls the night of his death, an ancient miracle man travels the country roads of Florida in search of customers for his Blue Elixir of The Nile.
“Peter Damian Bellis has a most original and compelling style.” ~ Joyce Carol Oates
“Peter Damian Bellis is gifted storyteller with a mastery of the short story format and a knack for engaging the reader’s sense of wonder.”
~ James Cox, Midwest Book Review
“A real display of virtuosity — these stories sail across landscapes armed with mystic charms, finely tuned detail, and enough grittiness to take the paint off your car. A genius of the unexpected, Peter Damian Bellis comes of age as a writer here.”
~ Jonis Agee, author of Sweet Eyes and Bend This Heart, two New York Times Notable Books
A 1997 Minnesota Book Award Finalist!
What Love Can Do By Ed Moses 238 pages; list price: $15.95 US ISBN: 978-1-955823-08-1 Release date: December 10, 2021 Fantasy/Literature
What Love Can Do is a fantasy set in heaven, with side trips to earth and hell. Humorous and sexy, scary and profound, it’s a celebration of love in all its forms. Ed Moses is the author of four prior novels and a memoir. He lives a quiet life in rural Pennsylvania. His prior novels include: One Smart Kid (1982, Macmillan Pub Co.); Nine Sisters Dancing (1996, Fithian Press); Pilgrimage with Fish: A Fishing Memoir (2004, New Rivers Press); and The Big One (2020, Daniel and Daniel Publishers). Praise for Ed Moses One Smart Kid is “a charming first novel, reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird . . . chilling and poignant.” –Publisher’s Weekly “Nine Sisters Dancing will steal your breath away, put a chill on your spine and conjure a lump in your chest. . . . Prepare to be blown away.” –Chester Sullivan (author of Alligator Gar and Sullivan’s Hollow) “Slipping into The Big One—this life of rivers and fishing, and a child’s love for his grandfather—you may think you’re settling into a rosy idyll. But Ed Moses has bigger things in mind, splintering young Eddie’s world with dementia and alcoholism, sending him on a journey which will expand his heart, and yours, beyond all expectation.” –Pete Fromm (five-time winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Literary Award)
The Ladies’ Catskill: A Murder Mystery By Sherry Skramstad 166 pages; list price: $14.95 US ISBN: 978-1-955823-04-3 Release date: August 21, 2021 Mystery/Memoir The Ladies’ Catskill: A Murder Mystery is a mix of memoir, crime fiction, historical narrative, journalism, and philosophical musings that begins with a middle-aged Special Education teacher dropping everything to head to the Catskills to become a horse trainer at the Monticello Raceway. During the transition from her old life to her new one, author and main character Sherry Skramstad travels to Canada to save a horse, is arrested for a murder she did not commit, tracks down the
killer in order to clear her name, and all of it takes place against the backdrop of harness racing and life on the backstretch, which is the alleyway behind each track where many grooms and other horsemen and women find refuge from the rest of the world. Sherry Skramstad is also the author of the critically Wendy's Wisdom. Praise for Sherry Skramstad's Wendy's Wisdom “A poignant story of devotion, sisterhood, and life's unexpected victories. And it’s all true!” —Len Berman (Retired sportscaster and author of The Greatest Moments in Sports). “Sherry Skramstad’s insightful book goes to the heart of the emotions and issues faced by siblings of people with developmental disabilities. Wendy and Sherry shared a warm, witty, wonderful journey through life, despite the obstacles that Downs syndrome erected along the way.” —Renee Kaplan (Former chief researcher, USA Today) “Sherry Skramstad takes readers on a voyage of discovery they’ll remember their entire lives. Not only do we learn of her incredible sister, who never let Down syndrome prevent her from enjoying life every day, but we also learn about ourselves. Wendy’s Wisdom may challenge your perceptions and your values.” —Bill Heller (author of After the Finish Line: The Race to End Horse Slaughter in America, Saratoga Tales, and Randy Romero’s Remarkable Life.)
The Moose, the Mouse, and the Little Irish Boy By Erik and Emil Martiny 138 pages; Hardcover list price: $27.95 US ISBN: 978-1-955823-09-8 Paperback list price: $17.95 ISBN: 978-1-955823-10-4 Release date: August 21, 2021 Children's Literature/Fable An eco-fable for kids, The Moose, the Mouse and the Little Irish Boy introduces the concepts of climate change and environmental friendliness to children of four and upwards. The story begins with young Emil, who is sick of his grandfather. All he does all day is growl at Emil and complain. The worse bit is that his grandfather’s breath smells like the petrol fumes coming out of an engine. One day, in a fit of anger, Emil’s smelly grandfather chases him out into the forest. Emil is so terrified of his grandfather he decides to spend the rest of his life in the forest. The first night in the forest is terrible, though. Emil is scared of the eerie silence of the forest because he realizes all the animals have disappeared and that he’s in there all alone in the dark.
So after having found a few strange berries to eat, he covers himself up with oak leaves and finally falls asleep.
Emil wakes to discover that a talking mouse called Samia is eager to invite him home for breakfast. Together they discuss the strange fact that there are no other animals left in the forest.
After a very cheesy breakfast they decide to explore the further reaches of Tollymore the forest in search of other living creatures, only to discover a long-extinct Great Irish Elk called Shookie.
The three companions head off in search of other fellow creatures, a quest that eventually leads them out of Ireland, as far afield as Sweden and Lapland. A few very strange, funny things happen on their journey to the north.
Erik Martiny is the author seven works of fiction, including the critically acclaimed novel Night of the Long Goodbyes and a short story collection titled Waiting for Gaudiya. This is Emil Martiny's first book.
Praise for Erik Martiny's Night of the Long Goodbyes
“Audacious, highly entertaining, super-literate Martiny takes risks and then he takes risks with his risks.”
—Rick Gekoski, (Author of Darke, former
Booker Prize judge and Chair of the
International Man Booker)
“Erik Martiny is recommended reading.”
—Amélie Nothomb
“Funny, irreverent, politically and socially engaged, wonderfully and persistently inventive, Martiny’s novels delight. They take traditions
and conventions, cherish them and turn them inside out.”
—David Malcolm, The London Magazine
Praise for Erik Martiny's Crown of Beaks
“A most imaginative and suspenseful riff on Thomas De Quincey’snotion of murder as one of the fine arts.”
—Hervé Fischer, artist-philosopher and
founder of the sociological art movement
A Ghost Wandering Through a Memory: A Different Kind of Reading of the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock By Peter Damian Bellis 68 pages; list price: $11.95 US ISBN: 978-1-955823-09-8 Release date: September 21, 2021 Literary Criticism/Poetry (This book contains both the poem by T. S. Elliot and the critical analysis by Mr. Bellis.)
Since “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” was published in 1915, readers and critics alike have read the poem assuming that Prufrock is alive. Thus the poem becomes a reflection on Prufrock as a timid soul who cannot muster enough courage to ask a woman to marry him. But what if Prufrock is not alive? What if he is in fact a ghost who every so often gets the chance to tell his tale? Thinking of Prufrock as dead from the beginning of the poem, a shade come back to take us on a journey, is a rather simple and straight-forward way of viewing the poem. It is also liberating, for it changes the way you read many of the lines, and provides a rather compelling framework for integrating all aspects of the poem. A Ghost Wandering Through A Memory thus offers a new way of reading and thinking about "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." But don't just take our word for it. Here's what Winslow Eliot said: "Mr. Bellis' insight into Prufrock is extraordinary." Who is Winslow Eliot? She is the author of ten books and comes from a family that can only be described as literary royalty. Her father was Alexander Eliot, former Art Editor of Time magazine. Her mother was the writer Jane Winslow Eliot. Her grandmother wrote children’s books, mysteries, and adult novels. Her great-great-grandfather, Charles W. Eliot, was president of Harvard University for fifty years. And her sixth cousin was the poet T. S. Eliot.
Clotel By William Wells Brown Edited by Peter Damian Bellis 244 pages; list price: $9.95 US ISBN: 978-1-7332565-9-9 Release date: April 25, 2021 African-American Heritage Classic/Autobiography As this public domain work is a significant work reflecting the heritage of African-Americans, and because the author or his heirs are no longer receiving royalties from the sale of this book, River Boat Books is contributing 50% of all net revenues from the sale of this book to one or more non-profit organizations working for social justice in order to eliminate racial inequality and systemic racism throughout The United States.
William Wells Brown’s first novel, Clotel, published in 1853, is considered by most scholars to be the first novel published by an African American. The novel is based on the belief, current at the time, that Thomas Jefferson had fathered an illegitimate mulatto daughter with Sally Hemings. In Brown’s novel, the supposed mistress of the President is a woman named Currer. The novel follows the lives of Currer and her two daughters: Althesa and Clotel. Currer and Althesa are sold to the notorious slave trader Dick Walker, and Clotel is rescued by her “white” savior, Horatio Green, but the lives of all three women end in tragedy. So on a basic level, the novel is a powerful reminder of the horrifying injustices experienced by African-Americans during slavery. But the novel is also a searing indictment of American society and the American ideal writ large. Brown begins with the implicit idea that Thomas Jefferson himself, the author of the Declaration of American Independence, was also a slave owner and quite indifferent to the humiliations his slaves surely experienced; but Brown makes sure that we as the reader experience these humiliations first-hand through the lives of Currer, Althesa and Clotel. In addition, Brown masterfully weaves together various anecdotes, poetry, folk songs and ditties, vignettes of slave life, and even newspaper accounts into the novel, in order to promote an abolitionist agenda. By the novel’s end, we can no longer ignore the debasement and recurring victimization of these three black women under slavery. The pain of these women has become our pain. We are now ready to join with all those who are fighting for the rights of African-Americans.
The non-profit organizations River Boat Books will be donating to on behalf of this book and other books we publish and designate books of African-American heritage include: The NAACP (https://www.naacp.org/); National Urban League (https://nul.org/); Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) (https://prrac.org/); and the Equal Justice Initiative (https://eji.org/).
Waiting for Gaudiya By Erik Martiny 196 pages; list price: $15.95 ISBN: 978-1-955823-03-6 Release date: September 21, 2021 Literature/Short Stories
These stories channel the imagination of Samuel Beckett in an earthier, more palpable, perhaps more recognizably human, 21st century kind of way. To one degree or another, each story is defined by a vision that reflects the absurdity of life in contemporary society or the potential future. The characters in these stories, regardless of circumstance, engage in an existential search for meaning in a world where meaning is largely absent. A plump woman on a commuter train contemplates the world through a bizarre lens of introspection and anxiety, giving descriptive names to the strangers she meets (names like Oldie, Insect-Killer, and Bandage), but she never actually speaks to anyone, though she does steal a piece of luggage from the baggage rack. In a later story, the man whose coat is stolen is a witness to the theft and unable to raise his voice. In another story, a man approaches sexual intimacy with the clinical determination of a scientist but is bewildered by the silence of his partner. Silence takes on an atmospheric, almost metaphysical dimension in these stories. It is an expectant kind of silence. Martiny’s characters all wait for something to happen, something to be revealed, some truth to be discovered, something to act upon.
Praise for Erik Martiny
“Audacious, highly entertaining, super-literate Martiny takes risks and then he takes risks with his risks.”
—Rick Gekoski, (Author of Darke, former
Booker Prize judge and Chair of the
International Man Booker)
“Erik Martiny is recommended reading.”
—Amélie Nothomb
“Funny, irreverent, politically and socially engaged, wonderfully and persistently inventive, Martiny’s novels delight. They take traditions
and conventions, cherish them and turn them inside out.”
—David Malcolm, The London Magazine
Airplane
Copper wire, wood base. I created this piece in late 2008. For this work, I aimed to convey both the industrial heaviness of an airplane, but also the cloudlike floating quality you feel when you’re in one.