Bøger af Norman Lock

A disabled Civil War veteran makes an epic, westward journey toward a fateful encounter with author Jack London, only hours before the 1906 San Francisco earthquakeRendered mute at the Battle of Gettysburg, Frederick Heigold returns to Dobbs Ferry, New York, where he marries a resolute suffragist and resumes his vocation as a clocksmith. Bereft after she dies in a freak accident, he accepts a commission to repair the enormous clock on the San Francisco Embarcadero, but the routine railway journey becomes a six-month odyssey. Finally reaching the Pacific, after having survived imprisonment, shipwreck on Edisto Island, and run-ins with assorted roughnecks and thieves, he happens upon novelist Jack London drinking in the Palace Hotel bar—just before the deadliest natural disaster in United States history.Eden’s Clock, the twelfth and final stand-alone book in The American Novels series, calls into question the American belief in individualism to shape our destiny when confronted with irrepressible, chaotic forces.

"Oliver Fischer, a self-styled bohemian, boardwalk caricaturist, and student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, enrages his banker father and earns the contempt of Philadelphia's foremost realist painter Thomas Eakins when he attempts to stage Manet's scandalous painting The Luncheon on the Grass. Soon after, he is ensnarled, along with Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie, in a clash between the Anti-Imperialist League and their expansionist foes. Sent to Key West to sketch the 1898 American invasion of Cuba, in company with war correspondent Stephen Crane, he realizes - in the flash of a naval bombardment - that our lives are suspended by a thread between radiance and annihilation. The Caricaturist, the penultimate, stand-alone book in The American Novels series, is a tragicomic portrait of America struggling to honor its most-cherished ideals at the dawn of the twentieth century"--

Nathaniel Hawthorne pens a new tale to exact revenge on his ancestor, a notorious judge of the Salem witch trials Best known for his novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne was burdened by familial shame, which began with his great-great-grandfather John Hathorne, the infamously unrepentant Salem witch trial judge. In this, the eighth stand-alone book in The American Novels series, we witness Hawthorne writing a tale entitled Tooth of the Covenant, in which he sends his fictional surrogate, Isaac Page, back to the year 1692 to save Bridget Bishop, the first person executed for witchcraft, and rescue the other victims from execution. But when Page puts on Hathornes spectacles, his worldview is transformed and he loses his resolve. As he battles his conscience, he finds that it is his own life hanging in the balance.An ingenious and profound investigation into the very notion of universal truth and morality, Tooth of the Covenant probes storytellings depths to raise historys dead and assuage the persistent ghost of guilt.Norman Lock is the award-winning author of novels, short fiction, and poetry, as well as stage and radio plays. He lives in Aberdeen, New Jersey, where he is at work on the next books of The American Novels series.

Fiction. "There are moments that remind me of Sax Rohmer or early 20th century science fiction, bits and pieces of language that seem to come out of Jules Verne or Gaston LeRoux. The language itself is quite stylized, replete with a carefully eccentric vocabulary that Lock does very well. He has an impressive ability to create a unique and original world"--Brian Evenson.

In the seventh American Novels series book, a young woman joins Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Barnum's circus to rescue her infant from the KKK.

"e;[Norman Lock's fiction] shimmers with glorious language, fluid rhythms, and complex insights."e; -NPRWhen U.S. Army chaplain Robert Winter first meets Emily Dickinson, he is fascinated by the brilliance of the strange girl immersed in her botany lessons. She will become his confidante, obsession, and muse over the years as he writes to her of his friendship with the aspiring politician Abraham Lincoln, his encounter with the young newspaperman Samuel Clemens, and his crisis of conscience concerning the radical abolitionist John Brown. Bearing the standard of God and country through the Mexican War and the Mormon Rebellion, Robert seeks to lessen his loneliness while his faith is eroded by the violence he observes and ultimately commits. Emily, however, remains as elusive as her verse on his rare visits to Amherst and denies him solace, a rejection that will culminate in a startling epiphany at the very heart of his despair.Powerfully evocative of Emily Dickinson's life, times, and artistry, this fifth stand-alone book in The American Novels series captures a nation riven by conflicts that continue to this day.Norman Lock is the award-winning author of novels, short fiction, and poetry, as well as stage, radio, and screenplays. He lives in Aberdeen, New Jersey, where he is at work on the next books of The American Novels series.

"e;[Norman Lock's fiction] shimmers with glorious language, fluid rhythms, and complex insights."e; -NPRIn his third stand-alone book of The American Novels series, Norman Lock recounts the story of a young Philadelphian, Edward Fenzil, who, in the winter of 1844, falls under the sway of two luminaries of the nineteenth-century grotesque imagination: Thomas Dent Mutter, a surgeon and collector of medical "e;curiosities,"e; and Edgar Allan Poe. As Fenzil struggles against the powerful wills that would usurp his identity, including that of his own malevolent doppelganger, he loses his mind and his story to another.The Port-Wine Stain is a gothic psychological thriller whose themes are possession, identity, and storytelling that the master, Edgar Allan Poe, might have been proud to call his own.Norman Lock is the award-winning author of novels, short fiction, and poetry, as well as stage, radio, and screenplays. He lives in Aberdeen, New Jersey, where he is at work on the next books of The American Novels series.

A bankrupt merchant encounters Herman Melville and is pursued through the depths of Gilded Age Manhattan by a brutal antagonistIn the sixth stand-alone book in The American Novels series, Shelby Ross, a merchant ruined by the depression of 187379, is hired as a New York City Custom House appraiser under inspector Herman Melville, the embittered, forgotten author of Moby-Dick. On the docks, Ross befriends a genial young man and makes an enemy of a despicable one, who attempts to destroy them by insinuating that Ross and the young man share an unnatural affection. Ross narrates his story to his childhood friend Washington Roebling, chief engineer of the soon-to-be-completed Brooklyn Bridge. As he is harried toward a fate reminiscent of Ahabs, he encounters Ulysses S. Grant, dying in a brownstone on the Upper East Side; Samuel Clemens, who will publish Grants Memoirs; and Thomas Edison, at the dawn of the electrification of the city.Feast Day of the Cannibals charts the harrowing journey of a tormented heart during Americas transformative age.Norman Lock is the award-winning author of novels, short fiction, and poetry, as well as stage and radio plays. He lives in Aberdeen, New Jersey, where he is at work on the next books of The American Novels series.

A black comedy touched with absurdity and a philosophical bent that puts the torch to middle-class complacency. "...Lock's ideas lend tangy new flavor to an old form... HOUSE OF CORRECTION is first, last and always a superior mystery-comedy-thriller... He has written a fast moving, absurdist piece of neo-realistic suspense of the sort that works best only in the theater. It is a tribute to his talent..." Sylvie Drake, Los Angeles Times "...Norman Lock's treatment of the evils of psychotic schizophrenia versus the even more ugly aspects of pretentious armchair liberalism is nothing short of hilarious in this outing. It's offbeat and loony with a sitcom flare..." Teen., Daily Variety "...it's very funny, and very scary like a nightmare that wakes you up shaking, forcing you to reassess your life... Lock's weapon is words and he uses them well...his imagery is vivid, his dramatic momentum strong..." Tom Jacobs, L A Life "This is a delightfully dark, beautifully acted suspense comedy...a script that balances outrageous farce and human tragedy... It is Lock's gift for concocting eccentric characters and devilishly comic situations that propels the play." Downtown News (Los Angeles) "This rollercoaster of a play may well turn out to be one of the most significant new plays at this year's Fringe...a gripping, individualistic piece." The Stage (Edinburgh) "We are kept on the edge of our seats as events move toward a climax beyond expectation...makes us laugh our way up a mountain of suspense." The Scotsman "HOUSE OF CORRECTION moves from sitcom to Hitchcock, mingling the two so neatly that sometimes you don't know which you're watching." Naked (Edinburgh) "The play remains ingenious in identifying those essential American tenets and dragging them screaming and skewed to their conclusion." The Guardian (Edinburgh) "...entertaining but rigorous in its approach to important moral issues... This is the first chance for British audiences to see the 'absurdist comedy-thriller' that has played across America, but the questions it raises are bound to be relevant here as they are across the Atlantic." Glasgow and Edinburgh Events Guide

"e;[Norman Lock's fiction] shimmers with glorious language, fluid rhythms, and complex insights."e; -NPRIn Norman Lock's fourth stand-alone book of The American Novels series, Samuel Long escapes slavery in Virginia, traveling the Underground Railroad to Walden Woods where he encounters Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Lloyd Garrison, and other transcendentalists and abolitionists. While Long will experience his coming-of-age at Walden Pond, his hosts will receive a lesson in human dignity, culminating in a climactic act of civil disobedience.Against this historical backdrop, Lock's powerful narrative examines issues that continue to divide the United States: racism, privilege, and what it means to be free in America.Norman Lock is the award-winning author of novels, short fiction, and poetry, as well as stage, radio, and screenplays. He lives in Aberdeen, New Jersey, where he is at work on the next books of The American Novels series.

Topical, astonishing and provocative . . . a masterful collection. Shelf Awareness for Readers (starred review)[Locks stories] are gems, rich in imagination and language . . . For all their convolutions of space and time, these stories are remarkably easy to follow and savor. Kirkus Reviews (starred review)Mr. Hyde finally reveals his secrets to an ambitious journalist, unleashing unforeseen horrors. An ancient Egyptian mummy is revived in 1935 New York to consult on his Hollywood biopic. A Brooklynite suddenly dematerializes and passes through the internet, in search of true loveLove Among the Particles is virtuosic storytelling, at once a poignant critique of our romance with technology and a love letter to language. In a whirlwind tour of space, time, and history, Norman Lock creates worlds that veer wildly from the natural to the supernatural via the pre-modern, mechanical, and digital ages. Whether reintroducing characters from the pages of Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, Franz Kafka, and Gaston Leroux, or performing dizzying displays of literary pyrotechnics, these stories are nothing less than a compendium of the marvelous.Norman Lock is the award-winning author of novels, short fiction, and poetry, as well as stage, radio, and screenplays. He has won The Dactyl Foundation Literary Fiction Award, The Paris Review Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, and writing fellowships from the New Jersey Council on the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Aberdeen, New Jersey.

"e;[Norman Lock's fiction] shimmers with glorious language, fluid rhythms, and complex insights."e; -NPRHuck Finn and Jim float on their raft across a continuum of shifting seasons, feasting on a limitless supply of fish and stolen provisions, propelled by the currents of the mighty Mississippi from one adventure to the next. Launched into existence by Mark Twain, they have now been transported by Norman Lock through three vital, violent, and transformative centuries of American history. As time unfurls on the river's banks, they witness decisive battles of the Civil War, the betrayal of Reconstruction's promises to the freed slaves, the crushing of Native American nations, and the electrification of a continent. While Jim enters real time when he disembarks the raft in the Jim Crow South, Huck finally comes of age when he's washed up on shore during Hurricane Katrina. An old man in 2077, Huck takes stock of his life and narrates his own story, revealing our nation's past, present, and future as Mark Twain could never have dreamed it.The first stand-alone book in The American Novels series, The Boy in His Winter is a tour-de-force work of imagination, beauty, and courage that re-envisions a great American literary classic for our time.Norman Lock is the award-winning author of novels, short fiction, and poetry, as well as stage, radio, and screenplays. He lives in Aberdeen, New Jersey, where he is at work on the next books of The American Novels series.