In addition to Jesse’s Girl, Gary Morgenstein’s most recent novels, both available exclusively on Amazon.com, are the political baseball thriller Take Me Out to the Ballgame and the romantic triangle Lov Guest Post: PRAYER WORKS – ALONG WITH BLOOD, SWEAT, TEARS AND TOIL While racing out of the cave every morning in my loincloth and shaking the spear at the sky might’ve had some impact on getting published, the old-fashioned dictum of persistence prevailed. That, and opening my eyes to the new paradigm in publishing. My first two novels were published through traditional houses. But a friend of mine, the best-selling author Maximillien de Lafayette, encouraged me to publish my latest thriller Jesse’s Girl, about a widowed father searching for his adopted teenage son who has run away from a drug treatment program to find his biological sister, through Amazon. I followed that with Loving Rabbi Thalia Kleinman, about a divorced man who falls in love with a beautiful woman rabbi. I figured if it was good enough for President Obama (he choose Amazon rather than traditional publishers for his two books) then it was good enough for Gary Morgenstein. What a pleasure it’s been. While I certainly think traditional publishing has a critical role to play, it’s wonderful that authors are not constrained through just one avenue anymore. Agent/editor/acquisition board, you are pursuing a very narrow path where one person can easily erect a roadblock to your art. Once Amazon has accepted your book just like other publisher, they pay excellent royalties, the quality of their design is top-flight and by the way, they are the largest online store in the world. Not too shabby. Unlike bookstores, they won’t send your book back to the warehouse if it doesn’t sell after two weeks. The greater challenge becomes promoting. The gap isn’t as great as it once was since most traditional publishers don’t market writers’ books anyway, only the top sellers, forcing authors to do their own guerrilla marketing and PR. So you must promote promote promote. Target your audience and then target where they might go. The vast preponderance of books is bought online. Go to book bloggers. Figure out niche markets. For Jesse’s Girl, my building blocks beyond the general audience were parents and the addiction and adoption communities. I also retained Pump Up Your Book Promotions, run by Dorothy Thompson, who has been brilliant and extraordinarily helpful. Be relentless, passionate, articulate. Rejection is a way of life to a writer and more people will brush you off then welcome you. But the most important thing you can do is get your work published. Traditional, Amazon, or e-books. You are the writer and you have to make sure that no one stands between you and your readers. That is the wonder of the new paradigm.
How much should a parent sacrifice for a troubled child? In Gary Morgenstein’s taut new thriller, Jesse’s Girl, the answer is – anything. Anchored around a floundering father-son relationship, finding roots and re-uniting vanished bonds, the timely novel about teen addiction and adoption follows a desperate father’s search for his son, who has run away from a wilderness program to find his biological sister in Kentucky. Available exclusively from Amazon.com, Jesse’s Girl opens as a jarring phone wakes lifelong Brooklynite Teddy Mentor well after midnight. It’s the Montana wilderness program saying that his 16-year-old adopted son has vanished – and they haven’t a clue where he’s gone. Only two weeks ago, Jesse had been taken to the program by escorts to deal with substance abuse problems. Jeopardizing his flagging PR job in New York, Mentor rushes across the country to find Jesse, who is off on his own quest: to find Theresa, the sister he’s never known. When Teddy finally discovers Jesse at a bus stop in Illinois, he is torn between sending him back or joining his son on a journey to find this girl in Kentucky. He decides to go. They become embroiled in a grisly crime when Theresa’s abusive husband Beau attacks her – Jesse stabs the big beast of a man, leaving him for dead. Given Jesse’s misdemeanor criminal record, Teddy can’t go to the authorities without risking his son’s arrest. However, Beau is not dead, merely wounded, and he hunts them down, thirsty for revenge. Teddy, Jesse and Theresa flee across the Bluegrass State with Beau in hot pursuit. Seeking safety but finding trouble, their story leads them to an ultimately shattering question: is Theresa really Jesse’s sister or has he been scammed?
Ever since he’d got the call in the middle of the night that Molly had died, Teddy Mentor had moved the phone away from the end table by the bed. Here in this bedroom, once theirs, then hers, now his, it sat on a pea green marble table just beneath the window. Even across the room, six feet away, the phone still jolted him. On the second ring, he stiffened like some zombie come to life.
It was about Jesse. It was one of his dealers calling about money. It was a desk sergeant. It was the morgue. On the third ring he remembered: Jesse was safe. Let it ring. He had no one else to lose. He stumbled toward the phone and stubbed his toe on the end table. Down he went to one knee. At fifty-four, stubbing your toe was like being shot. He scowled at the digital clock which he’d also moved so he wouldn’t count the sleep lost, the hours ticking off into the ozone, never to be retrieved. Slamming down the clock because, of course, that was to blame, Teddy grimaced and answered the phone on the fifth ring. One-eighteen and he had to pee for the second time that night. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. A faint crackle like a connection from space hummed, followed by a cheerful voice with a Western tinge. “Hello, Mr. Mentor, this is Paul Jennings at the Mountain Wilderness Center.” Teddy flinched. Oh no. “Hi.” “I am so sorry to bother you so late.” “What happened?” “Well sir,” Paul hesitated, “we had a little incident with Jesse last night.” He closed his eyes, as if that would help. “Is he okay?” “Nothing like that. He wasn’t hurt or anything.” Pause. “He left the premises during the night.” Teddy rubbed his eyes hard, trying to wake up because this wasn’t supposed to happen. This was supposed to be when the nightmare started ending. But from the window came the smell of bagged garbage drifting up the courtyard two floors below, carried on a warm late July breeze, so he knew it wasn’t a dream, it was real and it sucked. “Great. Why?” “We don’t know for sure.” “Did you try asking him?” Teddy couldn’t remember if Paul was the fat one with glasses or the thin one with a red beard. He had only seen their pictures from the staff page on the web site. “Well that’s the rub, sir.” Paul cleared his throat. “Jesse hasn’t returned yet.” Teddy sat cross-legged on the floor and wished he hadn’t quit smoking. “How long has he been gone?” “We’re not really sure, sir.” “What the hell do you mean? I just paid you ten grand and you lose my son after two weeks?” “I understand you’re upset.” “That’s one word for it.” How late was the mini-mart on Seventh Street open, he could get cigarettes there. “He disappears in the middle of the night and you just discovered that now?” “Oh no, sir,” Paul chuckled, eager to deliver reassuring news. “We saw he was no longer in the cabin around seven this morning when the residents gathered for breakfast. He’d tucked a pillow under his blanket, darn old-fashioned trick but seemed to work…” “He’s a clever boy,” Teddy said. Here we go again. Here we fucking go again. Teddy remembered now. “One of his roommates contacted the tech on duty and we then set out looking for him. The group just returned a few minutes ago and that’s when I called you.” “So where do you guess he is?” His armpits were drenched. “That’s the good news. Nearest town is Morton, that’s more than twenty-two miles away. Twenty-two point three, actually, sir. So it’s unlikely he would’ve made it that far.” “He could’ve hitched a ride.” “Folks around here know better than to pick up one of our kids. We’ve got the sheriff on this, he’s sent out an alert. Not many places for Jesse to hide, doubt he had any food. He’ll come back hungry and thirsty, they usually do.” “Or he won’t because he’s hurt.” Paul chuckled again. “I don’t think so, sir. Like I said, this happens sometimes. Kids get anxious, frightened, think running away is an option.” “But you don’t know for sure he’s okay. You don’t know for sure where he is.” Teddy’s lower back ached, from muscles or bones or everything else. He wanted to lie down and close his eyes and make it all go away. Paul’s voice hardened slightly. “We know these kids, sir. Just wanted to give you a shout and let you know not to worry.” “You don’t think I’m going to worry that my 16-year-old son is missing somewhere in the middle of Montana?” Teddy shouted. “Sir, it sounds far worse than it is.” “Silly me for over-reacting.” Teddy chest tightened. “When will you call me back?” “When we find him, sir.” “When do you think that will be?” “Hard to say.” “Few hours, few days, few weeks, what’s the standard time frame when you misplace an adolescent?” “Is none. Don’t worry. We will find him. Just hang tight and we will stay in touch.” Teddy sat there for a moment, his head aching. Damn you, Jesse, he muttered. Damn you for doing this. For saying fuck you, Dad, once again. |
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