Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Birds of Paradise was named a Finalist in the 2006 Independent Publisher Book Awards. Set in New Orleans, the novel focuses on a barroom owner/ex-actor who is harassed by a local theater critic. The book ends with the approach of a hurricane.
From the Inside Flap
While Joe-Joe is thinking about having a window installed in the small, dark apartment behind his bar, his cousin Rose, who is writing a poem about a red-haired man and thinking about a boat-shaped object behind her house, receives a phone call from a theater critic. An old enemy of Joe-Joe's, the critic wants Rose to help him set up an interview with Joe-Joe.
At about this time, Harper, a young man from Minnesota, arrives in New Orleans. When he enters Joe-Joe's bar, he is drawn into a scheme whereby Joe-Joe hopes to gain the inspiration he needs to finish a play he began writing years ago. Joe-Joe, a recluse since retiring from a successful career as a local stage and T.V. commercial actor, believes he must obtain information about his former lover, Charlene, in order to finish the play. He convinces Harper to become a boarder in Charlene's house so that he can bring Joe-Joe "details" about her.
Throughout this powerfully moving, often hilarious novel, Goza paints a sympathetic yet unrelentingly honest portrait of a man who once thought of himself as "a leading man's leading man" and now finds it difficult to make the simplest decision, whether it is to install a greenhouse window in his bedroom or to invite Annette, the bartender, to stay after work and have chili with him. Birds of Paradise explores the connections between memory and obsession, between desperation and hope. It is a compelling and strikingly original novel, and, with it, Hiram Goza has proven to be among the most talented of contemporary novelists.
Birds Of Paradise
Birds of Paradise,Hiram Goza,Claiborne Press,0975472305,Actors,Fiction,Fiction - General,General,Literary,Playwriting,Theater critics
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