Hi. I'm an indie author.
If you read my blog entry WHY I HATE INDIE PUBLISHING (www.francescorizzuto.com/blog/why-i-hate-indie-publishing), then you'll understand why I'm seeking representation for my latest novel. Indie authors, artists and photographers, I grovel at your feet. Please forgive me!
Ginger Martin is a young widow whose husband perished during the D-Day landings of June 1944. She supports herself in New York as a proof-reader for a literary agency while awaiting a government pension check that never arrives. In a fruitless attempt to dull her sense of isolation and loss, she lures furloughed soldiers up to her room above a diner in the Bronx for some rough sex. When Ginger accepts a proposal from the agency’s owner to travel to Chicago for a publishers’ convention, her life takes an unanticipated turn.
The Cranesbill is inspired by and illustrated with the paintings of American artist Edward Hopper (1882-1967). Hopper was a painter of silent spaces and uneasy encounters. His primary emotional themes are solitude, isolation, loss, loneliness, regret, melancholy, and resignation. The viewer assumes the role of voyeur, spying on a couple’s intimacy or lack of it, or on the aftermath of an individual’s solitary vices. Sex is at the root of The Cranesbill and drives the story throughout.
The Cranesbill is also a treatise on duality, a story within a story. While the day-to-day narrative chronicles Ginger's journey from small town girl to big city prostitute to literary success and financial independence, excerpts from her novel and diary carry the reader through a parallel story arc. The two journeys merge in a surprise ending. No spoilers. You'll need to read the novel to find out.
The Cranesbill is a member of the Geranium family. It is a fragile plant yet given sufficient water and soil in which to grow, it produces an amazing number and variety of coloured blossoms. It is considered a symbol for stupidity and folly; nonetheless, it reappears in profusion each and every year.
I am a serious writer seeking a serious literary agent to represent this unique novel. If that's you, then please contact me at francesco.rizzuto.author@gmail.com.
Sample chapters for The Cranesbill can be downloaded from my website at www.francescorizzuto.com/portfolio-1
Read a short story based on a painting by Edward Hopper (chapter excerpted from The Cranesbill) at www.francescorizzuto.com/blog/chop-suey
