BOOK LIST
The books I have written are listed below latest to oldest. Most are available for purchase either as a print or an ebook at The Book Patch Bookstore, and a link is provided. All other queries should be sent to:
Five journalists sit at a round table cobbling their newspaper together. Portland Now & Then is an eclectic weekly that publishes anything of interest to these iconoclastic individuals from flash fiction to formal essays. Consensus is hard to come by. Each of the five sections of the book features one of the essential journalistic questions: who, what, where, when, why. The questions evoke a theme for each section; and a style is used to reflect the theme. Jack Korzeniowski , nicknamed Owl for obvious reasons, is the odd man out. His story becomes a focal point of dissension. His life, already tenuous since the separation with his wife, follows the fate of his story as it heads for the rejection like a red headed step child. 2025
THE RUCKUS OF BIRDS takes place in but a moment of time. Six minutes, to be precise; but whether minutes or hours or days or years, time is not relevant. The place as well is vague. The main character remains nameless. 'He' stands under an eave of his house watching rain fall. He watches the rain and the birds as they flitter and feed. His thoughts, like the birds, come and go, one feeding on another, going and coming. He is a science teacher at a rural university. It is spring break, the middle of the term. Birds are his specialty and his delight. 2024
2024
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER
BHCR follows Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery down the Columbia River from Wallula Gap to the mouth at Astoria. That this work is brief rests on two factors: The first is that it is obviously short. This is not the definitive history of the river. The second point is that not all of the river is described. Lewis and Clark joined the Columbia at its confluence with the Snake at Walla Walla; and this account follows their journey from Sacagawea Point to its contentious meeting with the Pacific Ocean. The intention is to compare and contrast the Columbia of Lewis and Clark with the river as it is now. The journals of the two leaders are quoted in each chapter to give a glimpse of what they saw and thought. Old black and white photographs taken before the dams add some visual reference.
The book is a long narrative prosepoem which follows the peregrinations of one Master Ko. He may be a Zen priest or simply a Daoist; or, more likely, neither of the two; but rather one possessing the philosophical underpinnings of both. The format of the narrative has nested within it an anecdotal reference to the Tao Te Ching. Thus it is 81 stanzas (or chapters or verses, call them what you will) long; and each stanza has a distinctive structure. The notes at the end of the book define the more abstruse vocabulary, details the names of people, places, and things, and provides a basic translation of the kanji used in the book in both Japanese and Chinese.
Trouble in River City. Cold cases and corruption, mayhem and metaphysics, this DoubleNickel Detective story serves up the usual mix of characters, clues and conundrums. Called 'DoubleNickel' as a boy for his thick glasses, 'Nick' as a college man, he otherwise remains without a name. This nondescript fellow is, in appearance, a brown paper sack, a mutt of mixed ancestry. His father was Japanese. His mother was Irish. He is sardonic. He drinks. He is not your gentleman sleuth. He is a private eye who lines up with the hard boiled boys. An Afterward provides both an explication of the format as well as a comment on detective stories generally. Might be more here than meets the eye.
SALTARELLO Volume I collected stories
The book is a compilation of the eclectic short stories of gv simoni. The title is a name of a lively dance form in which hops and jumps are featured. The word 'satire' derives from the same Latin root. The stories, like the dance, do not lack for liveliness; and humor, exaggeration, and irony will be found throughout.
The book tells the story of Elizabeth, her childhood friend Micki, and a blind geisha from the 15th century. In literature, or other arts, synchronicity is defined as a representation in the same frame of two or more events which occurred at different times. Such are the lives of the three women in The Blind Geisha.
WG is a translation of selected prose excerpts ad various poems written by the 17th century Japanese wordsmith Bashō. Two versions of Japanese, character and romanization, and an English translation are presented. The ideograms or characters of Japanese (like their Chinese counterparts) are representational. Our alphabet is symbolic. Including both versions of the poem provides some depth of understanding.
CHP is a long narrative combining poetry with prose. Central to the story are the poems of 17th century Japanese wordsmith Bashō. Protagonist James Lee Cunningham teaches a course on the poet's Narrow Road To The Deep North. His university students, his friends, and his wife Mia Sakai interact to weave their own way along the cobbled paths and muddy tracks from the Sea of Japan to Corvallis, Oregon.
EXCERPT available in Excerpts / Stories
Plump Black Crows is a collection of stories and poems all from gv simoni's early work. The book explores the sometimes subtle, often brutal interplay between the creations of nature and the constructs of man. River and mountain, church and state, character strengths and weaknesses all have their moments. Resolution of the conflicts are, as with beauty, bought with the eye of the beholder.
CONVERSATIONS WITH A HYPOXIC DOG
CwHD is a collection of essays, stories and poems from gv simoni's later work. The book explores the nuances of both the physical and the metaphysical aspects of one's existence. Prose, poetry and prose poems offer up insight into life's little indigestions.
The cluster of buildings that was MacKensie sat in its cleared patch of forest in its valley all hemmed about by ridges, the sky immense overhead, the stars galling with their glow and twinkle. The new highway had gone north through Santiam Pass. The old highway became, then, simply Main Street, the town truncated, kept small by circumstance, cut off within its loops of river and ridge. With the welcome cold settling down from the ridges, displacing the hot day, with fog rising from the pond, with the midnight darkness complete save for a small pool of light shining through the shaded windows of the Crosscut Cafe and from the bare bulb above the post office door, MacKensie slumbered. Across the street from the cafe, flickering loops of red neon proclaimed Bights Saloon; and just below that, a yellowed white sign that read LOSED. West down Main Street, three ravens strutted toward the old W.P.A. bridge. Trash from an overturned barrel decorated a small park. Tattered flagging hung limp from the eaves of Wagnall's service station. The 4th of July loomed. And so did the outcome of a bet between two of MacKensie's rather iconoclastic citizens. Joe Murchison and Willard Crenshaw had been feuding for weeks. Now Murchison has to climb Grants Mountain by the 4th or leave town. If the mountain is climbed, Crenshaw is out lock, stock, and barrel. The outcome turns on a surprising change in the weather and an equally surprising change of heart.
A bawdy, farcical, often satirical, novel that pokes and pulls at American culture in particular and world culture in general. Both detective story and saga, sometimes slapstick then again droll, the tale acknowledges the persistence of the conquistadores and inquisitors of the planet. If the meek are to inherit the earth, they'd best get a move on.
EXCERPT available in Excerpts / Stories
