Writers talk about the quality of writing. Sometimes that's hard to measure. Until I started reading Jeff Conine's book, LAST AUTUMN. All I can say is WOW! This is literary fiction, a different genre, still us romance writers can learn a thing or two from Jeff's amazing command and use of language.
With his permission, I'm posting the opening of one of his books to inspire the rest of us.
(Book cover from Amazon)
LAST AUTUMN
by Jeff Conine
Jake jerked up from his deep, dreamless stupor with an urgent
sadism. Wide-eyed, his sweat-matted
head eased a slow retreat onto the pillow. He hoped the morning’s chill would
soon clear the haze. Minutes later the
fog lifted: she was coming today.
This registered, he leapt from bed and
scrambled for his alarm clock. In his
adrenaline-etched haste, he slipped, cracking his knee against the bedside
table--an old crate bumpy with candle wax, overlaid with a cigarette-scarred
cloth--sending a near-empty jug of wine ass over tit into some beer
empties. As the Dago Red fluid anointed
the aluminum, he stared, his mind encumbered in vague memory of the night
before--and all those before, leading a domino-lined blackness backwards, out
of memory to some half-lit past where it must have been different.
He found the clock peering up at him from a
heap of poetry chapbooks scattered on his steamer trunk next to his desk. Nervously he checked the time. Ten-thirty.
Christ, he cursed as he surveyed his cabin, crib's a mess--no way to
clean this bastard up in time.
He sighed.
No surprise: the cabin hadn't had many thorough cleanings in the many
moons he had come to call it home. In its present state, though never a garden
club showplace, it looked worse than usual. He nodded knowingly at this recent
development as he looked back at the clock.
The smell of musty cigarette smoke emanated
from the walls and curtains and found visible source in brownish yellow tinted
splotches on the ceiling and windows, eye-sored with lung poison. An even worse
odor of stale alcohol--puke-provoking blends of wine, beer and whiskey--issued
from throw rugs and favored parts of the hardwood floor. Jake had the post-facto, guilt-inducing habit
of drunkenly knocking over near-empties tactically placed upright across his
knotty pine nursery--decoy ducks surrounding his kiddie pool blind. (Naturally,
the brace of swallows inside did not merit the usual preternatural reflexes he
mustered when preserving larger doses of his sacrament.) He would never wash
out these royal spots--to do so would be treasonous to his murderous
lifestyle. Besides it took all the fun
out of awakening to his latest floor mural.
Jake had stumbled the night before. The corners of his Persian rug nearest his
mattress betrayed signs of a scuffle. The winner, he couldn't say, but his
smile as he dabbed at a scab at his temple betrayed the loser. Although he had lost, he had not gone down
easily or willingly: he had fought the noble fight. Looking closer he discovered drops of dried
blood in the dust next to the clear area where his rug had been.
He continued to survey the room for other
damage, his eyes alighting on his paint-spotted desk perpendicular from the
wall. Untouched long since...how many weeks, he mused? He noticed the yellowish taint of the mass of
wadded-up pages laying siege to the dusty typewriter. His cavity-ridden bookshelves grimaced over
opened books overlapping and terracing outward, wavelike, also stained
yellowish with tobacco and neglect.
Seeing the prevalent jaundice, Jake grieved at his seeming loss of
respect--of them--and he supposed of himself.
Even his precious books, he shook his head.
Jake's clearing sense of smell shifted his
eyes to the little kitchen recess off the far corner of the cabin--easily the
worst section of his digs--sink and counters piled high with dishes--unrinsed,
unwashed for days. Pots encrusted with
canned food crowned these heaps while paper sacks full of aluminum and tins
mobbed the floor, adding superfluous testimony that Jake, a good cook, had been
too lazy of late.
“Dinty Moore
says,'This place recommended by Drunken Hines,'” John smiled without humor.
It all seemed so silent and unashamed and
blatant.
He turned his gaze back to his books. He got to his knees and crawled over on all
fours to them. He began to stuff his
books back to their rightful places in the bookshelves. Done, he tenderly aligned the rows, his
fingers lingering here and there, his thoughts drifting. Then, shaking himself to his feet, he decided
it was too late to clean the kitchen, or much of anything. As for himself, at least he had managed a
bath the night before--before deciding to have a drink. No need to dress since the 'drink' had put
him to sleep in his clothes, also clean enough despite his late-night wrestling
match with his unknown assailant. He
smoothed and straightened his uniform: dull, patched jeans; striped tee-shirt;
loose flannel shirt.
“Move over Dinty and Mr. Hines and make room
for the third stooge...the far side of thirty and I still can't tie a
tie."
Brilliant writing, Jeff. Thank you so much for sharing with us.
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“Goodnight, Mindy. It’s been fun. I hope you succeed with your theater and all. Have a good time for the rest of your stay here.” He raised his palm to wave before turning toward the driveway. A tiny pain shot through his heart as he walked away. Before he reached the SUV, Mindy was tugging on his sleeve.
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