Now, without further ado, here we go. First an excerpt from Ticket to Hollywood, followed by an excerpt from The Heart of Darkness Club, both read by Dennis Gallagher.
Showing posts with label The Heart of Darkness Club. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Heart of Darkness Club. Show all posts
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Gary Reilly excerpts - embedded videos
Now, without further ado, here we go. First an excerpt from Ticket to Hollywood, followed by an excerpt from The Heart of Darkness Club, both read by Dennis Gallagher.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
GIVEAWAY: "The Heart of Darkness Club" by Gary Reilly
Today, my lovelies, we're featuring this book in our giveaway. One lucky winner will receive a physical copy of this book. Unfortunately this giveaway is only open for US addresses, so my apologies to my international followers. But don't despair! You know I have giveaways regularly!
So fill out the Rafflecopter form below for your chance to win a copy of this book. While it is the third book in a series, each book can easily stand by itself. I hope that once you've read this one, you'll want to pick up and read the others, though.
Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
"The Heart of Darkness Club" book feature plus author biography
BOOK DETAILS
Paperback: $14.95, eBook, $9.99
Paperback: $14.95, eBook, $9.99
ISBN: 978-0984786022
Comic Fiction, 194 pages
Running Meter Press / Big Earth Publishing
May 28, 2013
MEET
DENVERITE BRENDAN MURPHY...
Or
“Murph” as he’s known to the rest of the world.
That
world consists mostly of fares and doormen and fellow hacks from the Rocky
Mountain Taxicab Company. He lives alone in his crow’s nest apartment, fries a
hamburger for every meal, does his dish, then channel surfs for reruns of Gilligan’s Island.
He’s
a radical minimalist.
Murph
has two main goals in life. First, to earn no more from driving his cab than it
takes to keep his bohemian lifestyle afloat. Second, never and under any
circumstances get involved in the lives of his fares. He’s not very good with
the first issue and spectacularly bad with the second.
The Heart of Darkness Club is
the third book of The Asphalt Warrior series,
following The Asphalt Warrior and Ticket to Hollywood. In The Heart of Darkness Club, Murph
encounters a mysterious nihilist who may or may not be leaving him cryptic
handwritten notes on five-dollar bills.
Come
prowl the mean streets of Denver with Murph and ponder the meaning of the world
and all sorts of deep questions, such as “Why would anyone want to DO
anything?”
Website: TheAsphaltWarrior.com
Twitter @Asphalt_Warrior Facebook The Asphalt Warrior Goodreads Gary Reilly
Gary Reilly was a writer.
Simply
stated, that was the essence of the man.
Born in
Arkansas City, Kansas he spent his early years in Kansas and Colorado in a
large Irish-Catholic family of seven brothers and sisters. The family moved to
Denver where Gary attended parochial high school, graduating in 1967.
He served
two years in the army, including a tour in Vietnam as a military policeman.
After discharge, Gary majored in English at Colorado State University and continued studies at the Denver campus of the University of Colorado.
After discharge, Gary majored in English at Colorado State University and continued studies at the Denver campus of the University of Colorado.
All along,
his overarching ambition was to write fiction. And he did, prodigiously. His
first published short story, The
Biography Man, was included in the Pushcart Prize Award anthology in 1979.
Later he
turned to novels, several based on his army experiences. While he wrote both
serious and genre fiction, his greatest invention was the character, Murph, a
likable, bohemian Denver cab driver. Starting with The Asphalt Warrior, Gary cranked out eleven Murph novels.
His
dedication to writing did not include self-promotion. Instead of seeking agents
and publishers, he focused on his craft, writing and rewriting, polishing to
perfection. He wrote well over twenty novels before he thought he was ready to make
his work public.
Unfortunately,
he passed away in March 2011, before he could realize that dream.
Friends and
family remember Gary as a fun-loving, generous soul who always had time for
other writers, helping them shape their work, getting it ready for print.
Now, through
Running Meter Press and Big Earth Publishing in Boulder, Colorado, Gary’s fiction
is finally coming to bookstores in Colorado and across the nation.
"The Heart of Darkness Club" Guest Post!
I still have not managed to put my hands on The Asphalt Warrior, the first book in the series, yet, but you can see my review of Ticket to Hollywood, the second book, here. You can also see my book feature on the same book here. Today I'll also be posting a book feature for this book, and a giveaway, so be sure to check those out!
Today I have a guest post written by the folks who have been publishing these excellent books, a sort of retrospective on Gary Reilly, who he was. It's wonderful.
Without further ado...
Who was Gary Reilly?
Gary Reilly was an inspiring mentor, a sharp-eyed editor, a book club pal (in our own little two-member club), a voracious reader, a lover of movies, a devoted fan of stories in any form and a guy who always wanted to know, as much as anything else, how you’re doing.
Gary was the kind of guy who would email you in the middle of the night when a new idea for a scene came to him. That is, a new idea for a scene in one of your stories (not his).
Gary was the kind of guy who would show up for coffee and pull out a well-thumbed draft of your novel and humbly say: “Well, I was looking through your book again and a couple more things occurred to me.” The “again,” in this case, might mean the fifth or sixth run-through.
Gary Reilly was the kind of guy who would show up for coffee with a backpack or briefcase jammed with books he thought you might want to read. Or a novel he had just written. Or an older novel of his he had just re-written. Again.
Gary loved Georges Simenon—and was impressed by Simenon’s productivity.
But Gary also liked Proust and Dickens—and Elmore Leonard and Patricia Highsmith. He’d prowl the used paperback stores along South Broadway in Denver. He liked pulp fiction covers. He got a kick out of the noir titles and (of course) the stories inside.
When I casually mentioned one day that a childhood friend had written his first novel, Gary was the kind of guy who said, “I want to read it.” And of course Gary not only read the book but provided thoughtful, detailed feedback and commentary—for someone he had never met. Because he enjoyed stories.
Gary was the kind of guy who wrote a treatise about novel structure. He was fascinated by the arc of a story and how to build tension into a plot. He called the middle section of novels “the part where everyone is running around and shooting at one another.”
Gary Reilly had a self-starting laugh—a gentle, rolling, dry kind of laugh. His voice would hit a higher pitch and he would smile broadly. He was tall and barrel-chested. When I knew him, late in life, he had white hair. He moved slowly, even before he got sick and started on chemo. He listened carefully. He loved a good iced latte.
He loved being amused. And he enjoyed amusing others. He wrote 11 novels about Brendan Murphy, a.k.a. “Murph,” a Denver cab driver based on the 14 years Gary spent driving a cab.
They are packed with amusing lines and insights about life. In spots, the novels are wickedly funny. Murph is endlessly self-effacing. Here’s one quick line, right after Murph is given a five-dollar tip. “I tried to put the fiver out of my mind as I drove the remainder of my shift, but that was like trying to forget my first kiss. With a girl, I mean, not ‘of death.’”
Gary also wrote another 10 novels in all varieties, including two of the best Vietnam-era novels I’ve ever read.
Gary was the kind of friend who made you believe you could be a writer. He believed, you believed. If you ever had any doubts, Gary boosted your confidence, found a way to shine a light on your strengths. Gary read all the novels I had written, some plucked from dusty bottom drawers, and found passages and parts he liked. He put a spotlight and what worked in such a way that he didn’t need to tell you about the parts that weren’t so strong.
Gary was the kind of friend who didn’t complain when cancer slowed him down even more, when his face changed and his hair went from shaggy white to short and cropped. But the smile was still there.
Before he died, Gary wrote a three-sentence will that gave me and my pal Mike Keefe permission to publish his books. Just “permission.” If we wanted to, we could.
The first book in the Murph series came out in June of 2012—and with “The Heart of Darkness Club,” the first three “Murphs” are out. There are eight more “Murphs” and many more Gary Reilly novels to go.
Murph lives. And so does Gary Reilly—and his never-ending affection for the power of a good story.
Thanks, fellas!
I truly believe that with the loss of Gary Reilly, the world lost a brilliant writer. I want to thank his friends for publishing these books, and sharing his brilliance with the world! For the book information, see the separate post, also put up today.
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