Kudos for Cruising

It’s gratifiying to hear some nice words from pre-publication readers of Cruising the Green of Second Avenue.

Cocktail Reviews called the collection “a thoroughly enjoyable book, read in one sitting. Too hard to put down. Too hard to accept that it was over when the last page had been read. I felt lost once finished. The characters are so real that you become friends with them while reading. Still, all is not lost. I hear there are other volumes—something I’m eagarly looking forward to.” (Cocktail Reviews accorded the collection five Champagne flutes, meaning “You would be very glad if you had bought the book. Most definitely recommend it to someone else. You loved the characters/plot/dialogue. Superb/excellent/solid characters/plot/interest level/writing. You would look forward to reading more from this author.”)

Author Tom Rayfiel dropped me a note, saying, “I enjoyed the stories very much. A time of cheap rents and cheaper beer was the impression I got. I particularly liked the comparison of women to medieval theologians parsing every word in their analysis of relationships. I guess some things don't change. You paint what strikes me as a very honest, yet humorous, portrait of the day.” (Thomas Rayfiel, author of Colony Girl, Eve in the City and Parallel Play.

Thank you! I’m reminded of the narrator in Cruising, who said, “Writers, I’ve found, keep things bottled up in their heads. It’s a condition like constipation, and when writers finally crap it all out the world has a literary masterpiece. That’s not to say all output is literary. Sometimes, it’s still crap.” I feel vindicated that Cruising lies somewhere on the spectrum between literature and crap.