Download or read book Moon Alley written by David Appleby and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2006-02-28 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fathers decision to undertake a do-it-yourself-project for his daughter is made not with love, but spite; a daughter returns to the home of her childhood not so much to attend her fathers funeral, as to carry out a long-planned revenge; once a month a professor leaves campus to look in on her senile mother, only to find herself caught in a test of will and wit, and unaware that it is a contest in which the winners always lose; a waitress who nightly pines for the one she had allowed to slip away, uncharacteristically reaches out for one intense moment of intimacy with a mysterious stranger. Those are the stories of just a few of the people whose lives are played out in Moon Alley. David Applebys carefully crafted stories are written in what the New England Review has termed, an easy, fluid style, and that, entwined with compassion, and an acute awareness of language, provides the reader of Moon Alley with a compelling look into the lives of those who live there. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING Grady Harp, Los Angeles, CA United States David Appleby is no newcomer to the field of writing, having composed two monographs stimulated by his experience as a grant recipient in creative writing, history and literature. But none of this incidental information prepares the reader for the solidly unique voice contained in the pages of MOON ALLEY, his first novel. Appleby writes with lucidity yet at the same time requires of the reader full attention to the microweavings of his narrative, a fine, almost Joycean rambling of apparent stories that on first appearance seem to be a collection of short stories only to capture us in his ever expanding web of time and place and atmosphere and recognition into a true novel. MOON ALLEY is a dark book, a journey into the Irish American neighborhood of Philadelphia complete with all the detritus that the passage of time and industrial changes in America wreck on once tender ethnic havens of new immigrants. Moon Alley is a dead end dirty place where sundry characters live, drink, face failure, struggle for escape from the destiny that has befallen the neighborhood. The gathering places, in Applebys gifted hands become visual, complete with the stench of old beer, dank rooms, the neighborhood bar McFaddens Saloon containing The Ladies Room approached through the back entrance where the women gather to drink away their lives and gossip like a feminine mirror of the sots in the front bar, Charlies Diner, St Apollonias parish and highschool, the el (elevated train) which carries the noisy trains along The Avenue which dims the squalor and arguments to a muffled frustration, and the apartments and homes that house the down and out folks who live here. The characters, while similar in environmental shadows, are as varied as any fine novel: Irish Tom drinks his life away, Fiona tends the customers, Megan is a waitress in the Diner and confronts her lonely solitude in strange ways including attempting to befriend a flasher, Johnny One Ball and his thwarted dreams of having a son, Old Lady Ryan, and Soapbox Cathy Malloy and Kathleen OConnor who managed to advance to higher education only to be pulled back into the home they escaped due to a parent with senility or a father who died a strange death preburied in cement. Each character moves from a minor set decoration in one story to the focal figure in another and another, so that by the end of the novel we know all sides of these degraded people. As one character phrases the conditions of Moon Alley and The Avenue Kathleen had likened the emotionally impoverished lives lived on The Avenue to a disease - something like polio, or tuberculosis - something so severe that, if she didnt escape its gray and gloomy view of life, with its mute acceptance of poverty, and its blind obedience to St. Apollonias, that if she followed her mothers lead and contented herself wi

Download or read book Blind Moon Alley written by John Florio and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's Prohibition. It's Philadelphia. And Jersey Leo doesn't fit in. Jersey is an albino of mixed race. Known as "Snowball" on the street, he tends bar at a speakeasy the locals call the Ink Well. There, he's considered a hero for having saved the life of a young boy. But when his old grade school buddy, Aaron Garvey, calls from death row and asks for one last favor, all hell breaks loose. Jersey finds himself running from a band of crooked cops, hiding an escaped convict in the Ink Well, and reuniting with his grammar school crush--the now sultry Myra Banks, who has shed a club foot and become a speakeasy siren. Through it all, Jersey tries to safeguard the Ink Well with no help other than his ragtag group of friends: his ex-boxing-champion father, Ernie Leo; the street-savvy Johalis; a dim-witted dockworker named Homer; and the dubious palm reader Madame Curio. With them, Jersey digs for the truth about his friend Aaron Garvey--and winds up discovering a few things about himself. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Download or read book A Dictionary of London written by Henry Andrade Harben and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 684 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A New View of London written by Edward Halton and published by . This book was released on 1708 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A New View of London written by Edward Hatton and published by . This book was released on 1708 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Universal British Directory written by and published by . This book was released on 1791 with total page 906 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Cripplegate written by Sir John James Baddeley and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Compleat Compting house Companion Or Young Merchant and Tradesman s Sure Guide To which is Added a State of the New Duties on Wines Cyder and Perry By a Society of Merchants and Tradesmen written by and published by . This book was released on 1763 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Moon Alley written by Tom / Garrett Harrell (Kenny / Barron, Kenny) and published by . This book was released on with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Architecture written by and published by . This book was released on 1896 with total page 606 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Love Sketches written by David Appleby and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2011-03-24 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Love Sketches explores the sensuality of romance and the varieties and vagaries of love..Former colleagues, almost lovers, meet to discuss literature only to discover a yearning that rekindles their lost romance; teenagers infused with the early fl owering of romance struggle to maintain that romance against all odds; a young romantic learns a tragic lesson of love and redemption all too soon; an elderly professor devises a plan for one last try at romance; and amid an atmosphere rich in romance and sensuality two close friends reunite to reveal deep feelings theyve held for one another, feelings which went unnourished for those years they had convinced one another they were just friends. Book Review The fourteen stories in this collection bring us up close and personal with the many faces of love. These are more than sketches; these stories cover love's waterfront. The characters are ordinary, innocent, worldly and they are stopped short when they're tripped up by and succumb to love. The settings are varied - run-down apartment buildings, city offices, motel rooms, sleekly designed suburban homes, but the message is the same- regardless of age or class or means, love is acutely and intensely felt. There is romance but these are not simple romantic stories. The characters are complex, their lives are often adverse and conflicted, filled with guilt, anxiety and crises of conscience and there are no easy answers and few resolutions. The reader is sometimes forced to think beyond stereotypes- of age and class; we are often surprised by the turn of events, by sudden acts of tenderness. But the charge of love is everywhere, and the sensuality and sensuousness of the language is what stands out. There is a grace and lightness in the writing where a look, a touch, a sigh, a gesture between lovers allows the reader to be party to the ache and intimacy of the characters. Much is gleaned in these small gestures and much is left unsaid. Nature too plays a part- lovers walk through city parks, shelter under an umbrella in a rain shower, gaze out at lush trees though a huge glass window. The stories are suffused with longing and in some an air of melancholy pervades. In `Close Friends' two friends - `almost lovers' once- meet again and realise that love has held up after many years. In `Claire' a lonely wife prepares for a rendezvous with a man she doesn't even like in her desperate need for connection. This `dirty realist' story is played out against a backdrop of strip malls and dollar shops, but it is Claire's inner dialogue and longing for union with her husband that leaves the greatest impression. In `Bus Trip' and `The Graveyard of Romance' the sparse conversations and the minutiae of the daily lives of married couples are closely observed, and despite a lifetime of shared experiences and much compassion there is a palpable loneliness at the heart of these relationships. The Dance of Romance is a witty poignant glimpse of a 70 year Eng Lit professor as he comes to terms with the loss of his attractiveness to girls and women. `What I wanted was one last chance to push the pause button ...' In the perfectly paced story `A Long Romance' Dalton, a rich, middle- class, forty-something year old is captivated by Joleen, a young office girl. The reader is prepared to suspect his motives but for a while it is Joleen we mistrust. Their unlikely love is conveyed skilfully though Joleen's unique voice with her Southern dialect and colloquialisms and her utter honesty, and when the tears come they are killer tears. There is nothing precious or sentimental here, but it is achingly moving....`I can't believe somebody like you could happen to somebody like me.' The lovers in this collection are young, old, rich and poor, angry and vulnerable- love has indeed `many faces'. There are some happy endings but most of the characters are left to their uncertain lives, in sto

Download or read book Bowles s New London Guide etc written by Carington BOWLES and published by . This book was released on 1786 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Topography of London written by John Lockie and published by . This book was released on 1810 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Parliamentary Papers written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons and published by . This book was released on 1901 with total page 722 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book THE GIRL with the WISTFUL EYES written by David Appleby and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2014-02-06 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this carefully paced novella the author offers the reader an admixture of mystery and charm when an English professor promises his lover-colleague on her death bed that he will complete her landmark study of one of Britain’s most illustrious novelists. She leaves him her research notes along with a batch of letters she has written to him. Enter next The Girl with the Wistful Eyes --a strange college student and single mother of a five year old who rents the apartment above the professor‘s and sets in motion events that will send his life spiraling. The characters in Mr. Appleby’s eclectic collection of short stories are caught in isolated moments of crisis that speak to ‘the human condition’ ...a despairing university student returns to her grandmother’s house seeking a remedy for her broken heart; a young man attempts to make sense of a mysterious girl’s profound melancholy; a young women unwittingly relives a past love within the crevices of a new love, and in “The Catalog Bride,” a story rich with nuance, an aging university professor strikes a Faustian bargain--with himself. Cover Art: Erika Appleby

Download or read book The Bible Christian written by and published by . This book was released on 1843 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Christian reformer or Unitarian magazine and review ed by R Aspland written by Robert Aspland and published by . This book was released on 1840 with total page 844 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: