by Russell Bittner
Adult Fiction/Erotica/Romance
Synopsis:
Why would a woman entering middle age — attractive, sexy, articulate, imaginative, intelligent, charming, charismatic, wealthy and successful in almost every aspect of her life — knowingly give up the only thing missing from that life: namely, love? And love with a younger man she meets serendipitously not once, but three times — and whose appreciation of her quickly grows from mere physical attraction to adoration and then to obsession? The riddle from start to finish is perhaps to be found in the word "knowingly." The answer to that riddle? Revealed only in the final chapter.
DANEKA SØRENSEN is a Danish transplant to NYC, where she manages her life from an Upper East Side apartment building by night and from the top floor of a mid-town skyscraper by day — ostensibly, all under tight control. KIT ADDISON is a fashion photographer with a sideline penchant for flora and poetry who lives on the Lower East Side. The distance between them, however, is about much more than a mere hundred city blocks.
In Chapter One, serendipity brings Daneka and Kit together for the first time as both are exiting the Columbia campus — she from a poetry class in which she dabbles once a week, he from Philosophy Hall in which he labors days and nights without respite. This first encounter is both poetic and philosophical — but too hot to be captured in a mere haiku, too impulsive to be squeezed into an imperative, moral or historical, for either of them. At the start of Chapter Two, already eleven years later, they--or rather his camera and the front bumper of her limousine--meet a second time on a zebra crossing. Her search for a photographer for a special project (too hot and too imperative for any of the more than competent staff of a major magazine of which she is the Managing Editor) leads to a third serendipitous meeting. What follows these three meetings is, in the coming weeks, a game of cat and mouse — until, that is, their affair becomes such that "it seemed as if they might engulf each other in this single, ferocious act, like tigers chasing their own tails and slowly churning, turning, burning into butter."
Their affair takes them from New York to Paris, to the coast of Portugal, to Rome and Positano, Italy, to the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, then back to New York City. What they discover about each other in those few weeks is more than most people discover in a mate or lover over a lifetime. The exploration is an erotic Elysian field, but also a psychological inferno.
What gradually comes to light in the space of two continents and one return transatlantic flight is that, while love's bite may initially be sweet, the aftertaste may be exceedingly bitter — when not downright nauseating.
***THIS BLOG TOUR IS OPEN ONLY TO AGES 18 & OLDER***
A couple or three caveats to head off those who may be merely curious: (1) if you’re bothered by sex—even if entirely consensual—in the written word, don’t bother with this book; (2) if the use of foreign languages* (albeit, with either direct translations into English, where applicable, or with periphrasis using gestures or action) disturbs or annoys you, don’t bother with this book; (3) if the notion of a role reversal bothers you, don’t bother with this book (i. e., in her early forties, the principal female character in my novel is almost ten years older than her male counterpart; while no “cougar,” she’s clearly the money and power in the relationship).
* Spanish; French; Portuguese; Italian; Swedish; Danish; Russian; and Latin
Why the languages, by the way? Because a good 1/3 of the story takes place in Europe; the rest in NYC, with just a snippet in CA and PA.
Other than the above-listed caveats, perhaps the ten “teaser” points below will help you to decide whether this work is or isn’t for you. (Please forgive the repetition of content; I’d prepared these points once upon a time for my Publicist to disseminate over the course of ten successive weeks.)
1. Trompe-l’oeil is as much a psychological journey as a geographical one. Travel through the minds (and mine fields) of a couple in young love—as often, in young lust—as they travel from NYC to Paris, the coast of Portugal, Italy, Denmark, and back to NYC, where the bomb of their lust awaits the ruin and smolder of their love.
2. Trompe-l’oeil is not Sex Education 101. It’s Sex Education 404. It’s as much about what happens between the ears as it is about what happens between the legs.
3. A trompe-l’oeil in art or architecture is an illusion. Trompe-l’oeil, the novel, is, too. But it’s not about art or architecture—unless we’re talking the art and architecture of love and lust.
4. What’s the object of a true archer? The target. What’s the object of a dead archer? A missed target. Trompe-l’oeil is about aiming and missing—and about all of the hail, fire and brimstone of love and lust that fall in between.
5. Trompe-l’oeil is not a “how to” book for young lovers. Trompe-l’oeil is the story of two people who’ve already been there, done that—and who’re now willing to risk life and particularly limbs to try it all again.
6. “There’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip” is an old English proverb of ancient Greek origin. In the original Greek, the Argonaut is killed by a wild boar before he can taste the wine in celebration of his safe homecoming. In Trompe-l’oeil, it’s the wine of love and lust that kills even before the two principal characters’ homecoming can be called ‘safe.’
7. Love, lust, obsession and sight-seeing (in all of their implications) are the subjects of Trompe-l’oeil, a novel written with the conviction that each holds as much potential for personal ecstasy as it does for self-annihilation .
8. Trompe-l’oeil is a novel about love, lust and loss—a rollercoaster ride through a modern-day Divine Comedy, with occasional stops in Paradise, more frequent climbs and falls through Purgatory, a final halt in Hell.
9. If you’re looking for a modern-day version of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina or Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Trompe-l’oeil may be it—with one important, “modern-day” difference: what was implicit in both Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary is explicit in Trompe-l’oeil.
10. Trompe-l’oeil is a no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners tale of love, lust and loss. The tale may well leave you feeling a bit dizzy, but you can take refuge in the fact that it’s just a story.
Many, many thanks for your time, your read, and your possible interest.
Russell
About the Author:
You can reach him via e-mail at: RRBrklyn@aol.com
Giveaway:
Trompe-l’oeil in Kindle format
Trompe-l’oeil in Kindle format
2 comments:
Certainly caught my attention.
GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR BOOK AND THANKS FOR THE GIVEAWAY! SHELLEY S. calicolady60@hotmail.com
Post a Comment