Outcast, Carmen Khalise returns to Brooklyn for her mother’s funeral, where she, her brothers, and her haunting ex-lover are caught up in intersecting, parallel lives of betrayal and heartbreak.
At the heart of this novella are the fault lines of traditional family social dynamics. Concetta, the mother figure in SATURDAY NIGHT, adores her first son and finds fault with her gay daughter. Bernardo, the second son and a failed boxer, is a embarrassment to Concetta. As the mother ages, she anticipates growing dependency, and she re-positions herself in her children’s lives. For my purposes, I’ve emphasized the different ways the mother treats her children by putting the traditional family, son, daughter-in-law, and their children, on the East Coast and the childless gay couple on the West Coast--more than a figurative continent between them.
She disrupts her son’s suburban Long Island comfort creating a fissure between him and his wife. Simultaneously, by hinting at reconciliation with her daughter, whose relationship Concetta has aggressively criticized over the years, she unravels that relationship too. Both the brother and sister have partnered with powerful, out-of-tribe women who challenge habitual responses to Concetta’s behavior. As you can see from the cover, the mother dominates the story.
Available in Kindle and paperback editions at http://www.amazon.com/books
At the heart of this novella are the fault lines of traditional family social dynamics. Concetta, the mother figure in SATURDAY NIGHT, adores her first son and finds fault with her gay daughter. Bernardo, the second son and a failed boxer, is a embarrassment to Concetta. As the mother ages, she anticipates growing dependency, and she re-positions herself in her children’s lives. For my purposes, I’ve emphasized the different ways the mother treats her children by putting the traditional family, son, daughter-in-law, and their children, on the East Coast and the childless gay couple on the West Coast--more than a figurative continent between them.
She disrupts her son’s suburban Long Island comfort creating a fissure between him and his wife. Simultaneously, by hinting at reconciliation with her daughter, whose relationship Concetta has aggressively criticized over the years, she unravels that relationship too. Both the brother and sister have partnered with powerful, out-of-tribe women who challenge habitual responses to Concetta’s behavior. As you can see from the cover, the mother dominates the story.
Available in Kindle and paperback editions at http://www.amazon.com/books
