Big news: Russell Bittner’s fiction collection, Stories in the Key of C. Minor. published by Faraway, is available for purchase for just $10.96. An ebook version is also available for $5.00.
Six stories, all of which start within a five-mile radius of 350 5th Avenue, the address of the Empire State Building, the original “Ground Zero.” With this first book of five short stories and one novella, Russell Bittner believes that worlds can be discovered and described in a dewdrop, in a teardrop, in a leaky faucet—and that all that’s required is a good magnifying glass, keen powers of observation, and a feel for how language might be made to form a picture in the reader’s mind. NYC—fugheddaboud Brooklyn—is home to scoundrels and angels, derelicts and daredevils, high flyers, low flyers and every kind of flyer for every kind of service one human being is able to coerce, cheat, beggar or beat out of another. Russell captures that here in the key of C Minor—the key of melancholy.
The novella “Something Special,” which Faraway has been serializing in chapter-long installments throughout August is also now available as a single, complete file, for your reading convenience. Preview Russell Bittner’s talent in “Something Special,” then click here to purchase the book Stories in the Key of C. Minor.
]]>And now for the final chapter of Russell Bittner’s novella, Something Special. Bruce returns to his modeling agency in New York, where the press has picked up the story of a New Yorker’s death by bear mauling out in Yosemite. Will Bruce be held accountable?
Back in New York, and after having alighted from the Lexington Line at the 34th Street stop on my brisk way to Monday morning work, I stop in at a newsstand and buy a copy each of The National Inquirer, Star and The Globe. I figure if there’s a story—and if anyone’s going to cover it—one of these three mavericks will. Grist for the tabloid mill originating anywhere west of the Hudson is not going to find its way into The Post or The Daily News—unless and until, that is, someone discovers that the grist belongs to one of our own. Then, of course, she’s suddenly one of ours—so it’s big news. But I know it’s my duty to Angie to make sure that never happens. It would be a hell-of-a career boost, no doubt, but Angie can’t really use that kind of boost just now. I suspect, even before opening any of the three papers I now carry folded under my arm, that her rather short-lived career is all played out.
Click here to find out. Need to catch up? Click here for previous chapters.
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In this penultimate chapter of Russell Bittner’s novella Something Special, we see the results of Bruce and Angie’s late afternoon walk to the lake, and Bruce’s final machinations to make Angie a famous model, after all.
Three hours later, a fine dinner tumbling in my belly while a cognac and coffee wait within easy reach, I sit in perfect contentment on a loveseat in front of a blazing fire in a cavernous room of a fine hotel. This loveseat—like its twin just opposite me—is set at a ninety-degree angle to the fire, and I turn my head to look across the room and out the floor-to-ceiling windows at curtain call upon curtain call of large, billowy snowflakes—and then re-focus on the pitch black emptiness just out of range of the hotel’s lights. The flames of the fire in front of me, I note with some relish, reflect ghoulishly off the windowpanes—orange specters dancing for my perusal and with no other care in the world but that I should be entertained.
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As Bruce’s jealousy and disappointment grow over Angie’s dalliances with another young man at the hotel in Yosemite, dark plots begin to form in his mind in chapter four of Something Special.
I go immediately to our room in the expectation that a contrite Angie, finally reconciled to her ungratefulness, will be awaiting my arrival—hat in hand, as it were. I have every intention of extracting whatever price she’s willing to pay, penitence being as much at the pleasure of the aggrieved as it is at the pain of the transgressor. I have no idea who this young man might be; still less, any concern about his welfare; least of all, a thought about his retribution or damnation. The only compensation I wish to gain for this whole sordid business is Angie’s complete submission—that she should beg me to deliver her from her misguided need to look anywhere but to me for guidance, inspiration, and yes—transcendence. I and I alone will be her redeemer, I’m thinking as I open the door—.
There’s no one in the room. “Angie,” I call, half-expecting to hear a tearful “Yes, Bruce?” from somewhere within, but I hear only the sound of my own voice.
The thing now is to remain calm, think clearly, act decisively, I think to myself as I get undressed and pull back the bed sheets—but not before setting up my alarm clock with its luminous numbers and hands facing my pillow.
I’m solidly asleep long before both hands on my alarm clock reach twelve, and I have no idea how much time has passed when I first hear sounds outside our room, catch a glimmer of light from the hallway as she slips in through the door, then listen to her labored breathing as she waits for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. I half-open one of my own and note the hour: 3:00 a.m.
Click here to read more. To catch up, read chapters one, two, and three.
]]>Earlier this week we featured the first part of an interview with author Russell Bittner. Bittner’s novella, Something Special, is being serialized on www.FarawayJournal.com throughout the month of August. In this second part of the interview, Russell talks more specifically about his own work–the themes that appear, his settings, and the publishing process for his first book, Stories in the Key of C. Minor.
FARAWAY: What are some common themes that appear in your work?
Love. Loss. Loneliness. The three L’s. There’s no school I know of that teaches us how to acquire, keep or divest ourselves of any of them.
FARAWAY: How did you become interested in or why did you choose these themes?
Experience—the famous school of experience.
FARAWAY: Many of your stories take place in or around New York. Can you describe using New York as a setting?
I don’t have any special feeling about NYC. I’m not particularly fond of Manhattan, but it’s where I went to school, it’s where I worked for many years, it’s where I still sometimes play. My girl still attends the LaGuardia School of Music & Art, and my boy just finished up at Beacon and is now off to Wheaton College in Massachusetts next fall.
Subway Trestle by Russell Bittner
Unfortunately, the moment I come up from the subway tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan, I always first hear—and then feel—this great sucking sound, and it’s always going straight for the greatly diminished contents of my wallet. Manhattan is all about money. Without great gobs of it, life in Manhattan ain’t much fun.
Brooklyn is another story. If I had to pick one place in these United States to raise a family (the caveat being that this statement does not apply to all sections of this borough), it would be Brooklyn. Three of my stories have a Brooklyn setting. A fourth takes place at a midpoint between Manhattan and Brooklyn—namely, “Waltzing Matilda.” “The Poet & the President” takes place in Manhattan, albeit involves a fictional Brooklyn resident. Only my novella, “Something Special,” has no mention of Brooklyn whatsoever. It starts and ends in Manhattan, though takes place principally in Yosemite National Park.
Brooklyn is small town writ large. It has something of everything—and maybe more of it than anyplace else—including an enormous desire and energy to get off it and move into Manhattan. It probably also has more aspiring artists (both fine and con) than any other place in the known universe. Writers here are more plentiful—and cutthroat—than gangsters.
But as a place for kids, it just doesn’t get any better. We all wear our 718 (area code) T-shirts with a kind of “Up yours!” pride—although the underlying sentiment is more of “I’d really rather be up yours than up mine.”
FARAWAY: Out of all of the stories in this collection, In the Animal Kingdom seems the most personal, the most laden with emotion. It deals with a son grappling with his parents’ separation. Was this a personal theme for you?
You’ve “outed” me, Daniel. “In the Animal Kingdom” is—with a heady dose of imagination—virtually autobiographical.
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday—largely, I think, because it’s about family reunions. I grew up in a large family (the fifth of six children), and people were always drifting off to college. However, Thanksgiving always brought them back—and least for a dinner.
When I realized I’d lost my own newer family and that I’d never have the privilege of a reunion with them again, I wrote this story. It was a purgative of sorts. It remains just that.
Garden in Winter by Russell Bittner
FARAWAY: Can you describe how writing a novella differs from the process of writing a short story or novel?
It’s longer. Other than that, I don’t see any difference. A novella is not an excuse to get slipshod with language any more than a poem is. The last thing you as a writer want is to lose your reader’s attention. Do that, and you might as well go fishing. (Fishing, at least, has a better chance of putting something on the table.)
FARAWAY: What advice would you give to our readers about getting published?
Make friends with Daniel Sawyer—or with someone like him. Publishing is a risky business. There are, happily (for writers), a number of people in it who aren’t in it for the money. If they all were, most of what passes for “literary fiction” would never get published—or if it did, only after a writer’s death.
There’s a great line in the script of “Shakespeare in Love,” and I firmly believe Tom Stoppard was having a private little giggle when he wrote it. The producer of “Romeo and Juliet” says at one point in answer to the question “Who’s he?” (with an accusatory finger pointing directly at Shakespeare): “Oh, he’s nobody. He’s the writer.”
The fact of the matter is just that. The writer is nobody…until he’s somebody—and those somebodies are rarer than water skies on ducks’ feet.
FARAWAY: We have gone about publishing Stories in a way that differs radically from traditional publication. It is technically self-published. What are your thoughts on the moniker “self-publication”?
It’s like kissing your sister. I’m quite fond of my sisters—well, at least of one of them—but kissing her is not my idea of a Saturday night spectacle.
Do I really think anyone gives a hoot about a collection of short stories by an unknown writer? No. Everything I’ve ever heard or read speaks against it. But here we are—and there’s no turning off the spigot.
FARAWAY: In my opinion self-publication represents a large part of the future of publication. With the decline of printed newspapers and the popularity of blogs and websites that offer do-it-yourself services, more people than ever will be able to publish their work, although they might not be able to secure the audience that a traditional publisher could get for their work. What do you think of this trend?
For both our sakes, Daniel, I hope you’re right. I’ll certainly do my bit to move this book even though the idea of self-promotion would be preferable only to having my teeth drilled without benefit of Novocain.
FARAWAY: What are your thoughts on the process that we have gone through to make Stories available to the public?
I couldn’t be more grateful. You, personally, have done far more than I could ever have expected or even desired of a publisher. Do I wish you were independently wealthy and could be both publisher and benefactor? Of course. But wishes are born in heaven, lived on earth, die in hell. I’ll be quite content to see these stories between two covers and out of my notebooks—where, but for a few publications here and there—they might otherwise have died.
Green-Wood Cemetery by Russell Bittner
We are now into the middle chapters of Russell Bittner’s novella, Something Special. Read chapters one and two. In chapter three, now in Yosemite, Bruce’s carefully-laid plan begins to unravel, and things take a dark turn.
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I put on my hiking boots, get some advice and a map from Meredith at the front desk, and set out into the woods. The path—an old carriage road—is quite clearly marked for most of the way. Lack of observation or adequate light might get you easily lost—at which point there’s no telling where you’d end up—but the trail is a well-trodden one, and a bit of attention to others’ boot-prints leaves you in little doubt about your destination. Well over an hour later, I see a sign telling me I’m still .7 mile away from the lake, and I realize this hike represents something more than a comfy Sunday stroll. I may have to embellish a tad with Angie—not exactly a sportswoman from what I’ve seen—but the end will most assuredly justify the means.
My first view of water is no less stupefying than my first sight of the Redwoods and Sequoias as we entered the park. And yet, my sighting of what I believe to be the lake is in error; the spot I want is still a quarter of a mile off. I move on—and in the meanwhile, gaze occasionally up at what my map tells me are Mt. Watkins, Ahwiyah Point and Half Dome. The names have all the poetry of lentil soup, but the view can’t be denied. I wonder only how it is that Christian missionaries didn’t immediately throw down their crosses and go native when they first stood where I’m now standing.