Fiction Review

John Lazoo
by John Reyer Afamasaga
ISBN 978-0-9803486-0-6
Review by Heather Froeschl

When we re-create ourselves, are we more like actors in a play than we imagine? Or are we who we really are supposed to be? It is difficult to say which of our selves is the real us. In "John Lazoo," by John Reyer Afamasaga, readers will see the process of evolution within one man.

James Elton, born into the world with hardly a chance to survive, becomes a man by the age of seven when he works for his daily bread. His young mother does whatever she can to get by, living in a cottage on a farm owned by the man who will change her son's life. She reads James her own poetry as they sleep in the same bed, and she smells of her own homemade soap. At age nine, James enters a whole other world of incarceration, one which he will never truly escape. His soul becomes jailed and he learns to do what he must to survive.

Leaving the physical jails, James makes his way to NYC where he was born in a shelter before his mother ran for the fresh start of clean air. The city holds many dangers and opportunities for a young man who has no skills, no identification and cannot read. He begins to reinvent himself. What he becomes, his mother surely would not like. The devil is in the details of this tale and the deeds done are a form of hell on earth. James, now John, falls in love and hopes that it will save him. In the end, he may need to save her too.

This work is masterfully poetic. It reads much like a work of art, and leaves the reader to decipher the resulting impressions. Confusing at times, chaotic, yet carefully scripted, it is a highly interesting read.

Fiction Review

Fifteen Minutes
by Mark Connelly
ISBN-10: 1881515834

Fame comes to those who seek it, but also, sometimes, to those who are chosen by others to experience it. In "Fifteen Minutes," by Mark Connelly, those fleeting moments of fame are the goal after a lifetime of being just out of reach.

George Sabro washes dishes at a coffee shop. Growing up, he wasn't exactly doted upon by his mother. The military taught him to be a good bartender; life taught him to take chances, but to be ready to hit bottom. He learned that one the hard way. For a brief time he was a millionaire, but now, he has intimate knowledge of how to handle the Kleen Genie dishwasher at work. Nearing 50 years old, George wants desperately to enter that bubble of fame-dom.

With a cereal box bomb, he takes hostages, picked ever so carefully for the dramatic effect he seeks, and sits in an abandoned store in NYC. Geraldo Rivera tells the world about it. Will George find his fame? Will he do something with this power to better the world, even for just five people? Time will tell, with video footage on the eleven o'clock news.

Author Mark Connelly offers a unique and interesting tale of what desire can do to a person. His writing is tight and well thought out, obviously planned to perfection. His plot and the character's reflections back to the past, feel real and flow with natural fluidity. His sense of timing is apparent as the story is almost believable in an only in New York kind of way. Very well done!