Tony Nesca's free-flow writing draws the reader into a tragi-comedy of epic proportions➱ Calabritto, Literary Fiction by Tony Nesca Book Tour with Guest Post and giveaway
Tony Nesca's free-flow writing draws the reader into a tragi-comedy of epic proportions.
Calabritto
by Tony Nesca
Genre: Literary Fiction
Written in Tony Nesca’s classic free-flow, stream of consciousness, the prose itself mesmerizes and captivates, drawing the reader into a tragi-comedy that unfolds an intricate tapestry of human experience.
About a Girl
by Tony Nesca
Genre: Literary Fiction
About a girl is a short novel that begins with two strangers, a man and a woman, who meet at a bus-stop and go on an impromptu bar-crawl on a cool, winter day. Taking place in twelve hours it recounts the oddball, hardcore, characters they meet and their increasing emotional connection as they fall for each other almost immediately. Infused with sexual energy, pop-culture references, intellectual debate and literary allusions this is an unapologetic, uncensored look at our society through the eyes of the outsider.
It is written in a free-flow, spontaneous style with long unhindered sentences that enable the reader’s eye to glide down the page as the story flows and moves to an urban beat of strippers, punk rockers and nightlife happenings.
EXCERPT
FROM THE NOVEL CALABRITTO BY TONY NESCA
He drives into town at the mouth of
the village just where the mountain curves its way around the seven hills and
faces Naples and all that ancient wonder and everywhere is that lush green
forest with colours bloodshot auburn emerald mixing into the early evening
sunlight drooping Westward timeless and gone already, the occasional house dots
the road or hides in the trees as it pears out at you through the thick purple
foliage mixing with the mountain sounds of things alive and far away and
Ruggiero’s sport car bright red with hard earned money and all else lost turns
round and round hugging curves that just a few feet away drop down in straight
line for thousands of feet, after that comes the gravel road easing its way
into the Piazza with shops and cafes and bars and people and outcrops of rock
where young people sit and smoke cigarettes scowling at the world everything
roving moving cascading drumming up and around spinning and raising the volume
loud and up-tempo with that vigor and aggressive love only found in Italy
scorched and conquered and reclaimed…it was summer holiday school out as kids of all ages ran around the
horseshoe-shaped Piazza and Ruggiero eased the red nose of sport car forward
weaving slowly around the throng of people grooving with the hot summer evening
and lazy-slow-beauty of Calabritto, he moves slowly past Mascanzone and Troisi
sitting on curb drinking chocolate milk and talking all kinds of shit then
parks his car in usual spot, sees someone and waves as he gets out in
short-sleeves and pressed beige slacks with black dress shoes and cigarette
dangling from mouth…
She downed her Cognac and her
ass wiggled out of the room a few whistles and smiles and “madonna mia!” “jesu
christo!” “whoohooo”, she smiled, she dug it, she moved like a snake her body
gliding through the streets with electricity and certainty and the older town
ladies eyeing her with disdain and suspicious jealousy as she began her trek up
and up and up moving away from the village piazza and into the trees and the
cobblestone steps of Calabritto jagged and wide at parts narrow and shaded in
others, splitting, forking, twisting, winding its way around Calabritto, sun
setting behind the mountains you could hear the wind moving around its peaks
Graziella took a deep breath, held it, then expelled and felt it all, stumbling
up the steps past the shacks and huts and two story buildings all attached like
in Brooklyn New York row houses and there were roving dogs and the occasional
house light and the darkness that concealed all the life-dance and beauty and
futility and lost grins on the horizon, her high heels banging and sliding and
groovin’ and she took off the heels and continued barefoot toes painted deep
red shining in the mountain moonlight and lantern sadness past the butcher’s,
the bread shop, a tavern, a few stone huts that lined the winding stairs, then
stopped in front of a broken down hovel all grey and silent-tragedy
silent-blindness, it was one room, hanging carpet for a door, plywood for a
roof – she paused – then came the sadness – she crumbled knees hitting rock
floor – she sat there for a while hugging her legs then reached inside
her top and slid some money under the curtain – then she continued and there
goes Anna-Maria balancing the usual wood-piles on her head, and Guglielmo
running with the dogs, and old guys drinking at small tables in the open
mountain air waiting for the sun to go down, Graziella’s plump long thighs full
of all things wild and alive, one easy step after the other – there were stone
huts on the side with wooden doors arched and ornate designs carved by artists
long dead, outhouses in the woods among the trees and the wild dogs howling
through the cool nights, lanterns hanging from awnings casting shadows long and
wide so strange to see when alone and faded, suicide corners in the gloom at
the edge of cliffs overlooking Italy worn and ancient and still in the game…
Excerpt from
About A Girl
Winter day
at bus-stop hands in pockets puffing smoke thinking ‘bout a bike I had as
a kid in this very neighborhood, retarded boy named Ken used to challenge
me to race wobbling from side to side as he rode making car sounds on that
old fucking thing basket in front, “rooom roooom” “come on retard boy,
that all you got?” racing down Garwood Avenue that crazy loon flying right
by me up to corner then back and forth laughing like the world is all
right and it’s there just for us my mother on front porch shaking her fist
at me “beep beep” goes Ken, I’m thinking about this at bus-stop mid-day
streets alive with furious wanton music, young woman shows up out of the
darkness “hello” lights cigarette, winter day gray and shady,
“So who are you?” she says as the lights go
wiry,
“Uh-huh, oh yeah”
“I turned 23 yesterday”
Old lady walks by well-scrubbed pink
tragic like the sun she smiles at us young woman beside me we’re talking
high-speed ‘bout local bands booze on her breath I should be going home on
call for work security guard at downtown high-rise she’s smiling big black
hair we’re on the bus going through little Italy restaurants bars cafes go
by in a blur I’m telling her I used to play guitar in a band her green
eyes light up “should have known” she says,
“Why, cuz I got long hair?”
“Yes”
She pulls
a mickey out of her knapsack takes a swig hands it to me I decline,
think about it, then I take a sip bus racing through The Osborne
Village artsy part of town funky shops black clothes mohawk kids begging
for money guy with glasses throws up on corner, “Where you goin’?”
she says I explain the work thing gotta sit by the phone in case they
need me, got an hour to kill she’s looking for CD’s, likes That Petrol
Emotion and The Violent Femmes, going to that second-hand music place
downtown lady on bus starts singing Old Man River I laugh alive in love,
my friend beside me laughs too applies deep red lip-stick snow piled high
on the boulevard cruising down The Osborne Bridge sweating in our
winter jackets bus cramped and tired nippin’ vodka between the sheets my
friend looking brave and thinking, she’s reciting a Black Flag song
whistling in the wind, howling at the septic tank says she used to live in
Toronto hates it grew up on Indian Reserve called Pukatawagan says Winnipeg really
works for her, really like The Peg she says, guy snoring behind us,
bus-driver taking crazy turns announcing each corner with lame-ass joke
crowd laughing like derelicts my friend looks at me crosses her eyes
sticks her tongue out I feel my ass-cheeks rumble, damn…
“Ever been to
The Canadian Shield?” she says,
“Oh yeah”
Gust of wind gives Cocker Spaniel on
corner a mouth full of snow few guys on bus start laughing shiny hair
suburban nightmares my friend comments on them doesn’t like that type big
fucking deal I say do you listen to Brave new Waves? Sure thing she says,
new band called The White Stripes pretty good love that three chord
unorthodox rock and roll…similar to what The Pixies did I say,
“No one’s as good as The Pixies” she says
Approaching downtown the drunks come out
middle of the afternoon stumbling through parking lots and construction
sites she digs it says life is about this takes another sip of vodka I
join her people on the bus take notice driver looking at us in mirror
let’s get off I say…heel-toe-express down the downtown streets chinese guy
parking car reminds me of something I can’t remember my friend exactly
same height as me short parka with hood tight blue jeans beautiful winter
I’m thinking breath comes out in clouds we live one step at a time caught
in the shit of things stick and move monkey man on high wind tears out
brain things as usual he says, business guy walking fast briefcase dangling
I point to a mall then past it to a small bar hungover mohawk-kid in front
wrapping his jacket around him lighting cigarette,
“Let’s go there” I say,
“Juicy” she says….
Searching
for Rebellion: Two Indie Authors Form Edgy Publishing Company
Tony Nesca and Nicole I. Nesca have one question – where
have all the fearless artists gone? Unable to find a mainstream publishing
outfit that suited their taste for grittier writing, the Nescas formed
their own – Screamin’ Skull Press.
For the Beat Generation, controversy was the norm, not
the exception. Creators like Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs and
Lucien Carr courted debate and made careers out of pushing the proverbial
envelope with their poems, books, music and other creative expressions.
Living on the fringes of society was considered to be more exciting and
fulfilling than conforming to the mainstream.
Authors and married couple Tony and Nicole Nesca feel
connected to that Generation through their own work, and their innate
understanding of what it means to be artists whose work cannot be deemed
‘conventional’ by anyone’s standards.
Currently writing, editing and publishing their works
through their self-publishing venture, Screamin’ Skull Press, Tony Nesca
and Nicole Nesca have both cultivated individual styles but have the same
mission.
“To be frank, we see too much pushed out into the world
today that is bland and formulaic,” says Tony Nesca, whose unique,
humorous and lyrical sixth novel, ‘Hobo’ is out now. “Every other book is
a rip-off of another rip-off. The bookstores are packed with these endless
vampire stories and dystopian fairy tales. Where is our Anais Nin? Our
Hunter S. Thompson?” Our Virginia Woolf?
Screamin’ Skull Press exclusively publishes the worrk of
the Nescas - raw, electric and with a free flowing mix of prose and poetry,
their books are explorations of freedom, art, death, love, literary
experimentation and living how one chooses.
“We knew that mainstream publishers wouldn’t have the
courage to publish the kind of work that we want to create,” says Nicole
Nesca. “It’s interesting – sometimes we wonder, could Henry Miller or
Hemingway find success in today’s market?
It’s as if bravery is a dirty word in literature.
Fearlessness, to me, is everything to a writer. Although we have our own
styles, I think that’s one thing that Tony and I saw in each other when we
met – that drive to find truth and peel back the layers in our own work.”
“I think we first fell in love with each other’s
writing,” says Tony. “Which was a fitting beginning to our story.”
Tony Nesca and Nicole I. Nesca have published 19
distinct works through their Indie Press, and their journey toward a more
rebellious future for literature continues.
Tony Nesca was born in Torino, Italy in 1965 and moved to Canada at the age of three. He was raised in Winnipeg but relocated back to Italy several times until finally settling in Winnipeg in 1980. He taught himself how to play guitar and formed an original rock band playing the local bars for several years. At the age of twenty-seven he traded his guitar for a Commodore 64 and started writing seriously. He has published six chapbooks of stories and poems (which he used to sell straight out of his knapsack at local dives and bookstores), seven novels, six books of poetry and stories, a spoken word album, a graphic novel co-written with Nicole Nesca, and has been an active contributor to the underground lit scene for 28 years, being published in innumerable magazines both online and in print.
Tony Nesca and his wife Nicole I. Nesca have one question – where have all the fearless artists gone? Unable to find a mainstream publishing outfit that suited their taste for grittier writing, the Nescas formed their own – Screamin’ Skull Press where they have published 19 distinct works through their Indie Press, and their journey toward a more rebellious future for literature continues.
Screamin’ Skull Press exclusively publishes the worrk of the Nescas - raw, electric and with a free flowing mix of prose and poetry, their books are explorations of freedom, art, death, love, literary experimentation and living how one chooses.
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The excerpt sounds really good. Thanks for sharing.
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