Bøger af Jean-Thomas Cullen

Rob and Hannah Wilson (twins, 30) return home to Oregon from Europe for their father's funeral. Dan Wilson, 70, rests in a green cemetery of twittering birds and sun-dappled shade, beside his second wife (or was she?) Nancy, who died in 2018 after 30 happy years together.Unnoticed among two dozen mourners stands a beautiful, stylish angel named Claire from a parallel reality, wearing designer sunglasses and a Parisian outfit. Claire is the ghost of the twins' baby sister Klara, who died as an infant in 1979 while Dan Wilson served as a young U. S. Army soldier in Heidelberg, West Germany. Claire is invisible, but has a faint glow behind her, untouched by raindrops. Moving unseen through this world, Claire plants Dan's journals and drops clues to send Rob and Hannah on a mission: tying together loose ends, family secrets, and lost souls.Claire's other gift to our world is to reveal the pagan goddess behind Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting, Mona Lisa (which would have seen Leonardo burned at the stake by the Inquisition, had the truth come out). Dan and Nancy Wilson's twin children carry this story to its amazing resolution. Hannah works for a Paris insurance firm, while dating young music producer Yves Cartier. Rob is a doctoral student at Frankfurt's Goethe University, dating Elise Gillen of Luxembourg.Back in 1978, young Dan Wilson made a tragic decision on a bridge in Paris (Pont des Arts, by the Louvre), to abandon the true love of his life (Paris student Claudette Vervain). Dan returned to his duty station in Heidelberg, where he married a Croatian-German girl named Stana Chetko based on Stana's lies that she was pregnant by Dan.Their daughter Klara (Claire) was conceived soon after. In a dark, forbidding mountain village near Heidelberg, Dan Wilson's emotional nightmare included a loveless marriage; infant Klara's death from a heart defect caused by Stana's drinking, depression, and not wanting a child; sociopathic bullying by Stana's father (an escaped Croatian Nazi war criminal who raped Stana as a child); and Dan's unsympathetic, ignorant, at times cruel U.S. Army superiors. After his Army years, Dan returned to Oregon. He started a wonderful new life, marrying Nancy, and having the twins Rob and Hannah. But dark shadows of our past lie long upon the afternoon of a person's life.In 1970s Paris, Claudette's doctoral thesis revealed stunning info on Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa in the Louvre, credited to notebooks of Dr. Benjamin Wandrous, a Jewish scholar murdered by the Nazis in occupied 1940s France. After Dan left her, heart-broken Claudette dated a young alcoholic, with whom she died in a car crash in 1979. Her revelations were lost.Rob and Hannah journey to Paris, to learn the truth about their father's life, and why Leonardo da Vinci obsessed over his unpaid portrait of that soulful woman of 1500s Florence, Lisa Gherardini.In the Shakespeare & Company bookstore on the Left Bank, Hannah brushes by her lost sister's ghost under a famous sign: "Be not unkind to strangers, lest they turn out to be angels."Fate does work with angels to fix unbearable situations. On the windy, weepy, rainy 1979 night as Klara died in the German medical center at Heidelberg, a miracle came to the remote village. Broken-hearted Dan slept exhaustedly, but woke in darkness knowing it was the moment of her death. A calm, self-assured adult woman's voice spoke in his head; his baby daughter, as a mature woman (somehow, somewhere in time...).Klara (Claire)'s voice said not to worry; all will be fine. Dan Wilson heard her in his head, did not understand her message, and grieved for his baby's death all of his life. Klara promised that, on a future day, at the moment of his death, her daddy would receive a wonderful gift: a new life, back on that bridge at that moment in 1978. Now that promise is set in motion at Dan's funeral in Oregon...

KIRKUS REVIEWS: A poor university student in Paris starts an affair with a sophisticated married woman over the course of one tumultuous year...Marc and Emma begin a deep and intense affair, spending long hours getting to know each other in and out of bed. They gallivant through parks, restaurants, and the attractions of Paris, falling deeply in love. ...As they luxuriate in their mutual feelings, they are ... troubled by their own worries about protecting the happiness of the other. Told in the third person, the narrative is broken into four sections based on the temporal seasons and interspersed with short poems and ... artwork. There is a heavy emphasis on monologues and dialogue, both internal and external, throughout Cullen's sentimental story... The plot does move more quickly as the novel approaches its conclusion, and if readers can hang on, the tale becomes increasingly engrossing... The story features lovely descriptions of French foods, locations, and landmarks. There are also several beautifully rendered moments of human connection and self-sacrifice.A sweet but slow-moving tale of a love affair in Paris... -Kirkus ReviewsParis Affaire is a love story with an unforeseeable ending that will knock you out of your chaussettes.... about a young Parisian poet and his Angel in the City of Lights. They are both Parisian, but from opposite sides of the Métro tracks, so to speak.Marc, 23, is a handsome, sensitive young poet and rebel struggling to survive (taxi driver, bar tender, lawn mower, bookstore clerk) while writing vignettes and cascades of lyric verse.Emma, 30, is a wealthy, beautiful, classy faculty wife and former fashion model. Her husband has abandoned her emotionally, is a paleontologist on a long term assignment in Australia, is playing around with not only ancient bones but also fresh young ones in the clubs and on the beaches of Sydney or Melbourne. Lately, he has called from thousands of miles away to tell her he has found another girl, and is making long-distance noises about divorcing Emma.Emma, who looks ten years younger, an ageless beauty, has been alone too long. She has been faithful, living in her family's expensive and rambling, empty apartments in the City. When Marc happens into her life, they both click instantly. They run to each other's arms with passion, joy, and hunger.Together, Marc and Emma live in a bubble without time, where the clocks have no numbers but the seconds and minutes are sweeping toward some inevitable encounter with fate. In the meantime, they pursue love with all the joy and faith in their youthful hearts. But there is always a shadow of trepidation that their happiness in Paris may not last.He is her artist and she is his angel. Together, they make music along the same boulevards and streets that still bear haunting strains of Ravel or Debussy and verses of Verlaine or Apollinaire. Countless great artists have come here for centuries to walk in the covered passages and drink from fountains of inspiration. Can Marc and Emma overcome the differences that fate has thrown between them? Will their love last forever or just the one year told in this story?This is a young people's story - quirky, happy, poetic, literary, sad, reckless, joyful. It's a roller coaster ride of emotions leading to an ending you will not see coming in a million years. Nothing lasts forever - not in Paris, not in this life. As the French say: C'est la vie. That's life. Enjoy every minute, every hour to the fullest, while other trains are on their way to this station, other eyes and faces linger thoughtfully in rainy windows, looking wistfully forward to... the surprise of your life. And it was there all along. If we could just read the telegrams along the way. But we can't, and that's part of our destiny, and why life is so filled with surprises. Édith Piaf sang, "je ne regrette rien....I reg

This romantic coming of age novel - bold and sensual, honest and raw - tells of the passionate love affair between a 23-year-old idealistic, talented poet and a beautiful, neglected young married woman in a New England college town set in 1973. Written by a young soldier in 1976 Cold War West Germany and forgotten for forty years, it glows as fresh today as it was when I composed it in Paris and Heidelberg and other European cities where I traveled in my old orange VW as a single, adventuresome young man. Like many soldiers far from home, I was having the time of my life but didn't know it. I was homesick, and spent many evenings going back to our headquarters in an old Hitler-era Kaserne or barracks to lose myself in writing poetry and fiction. This novel was a nostalgic, melancholy, but passionate retrospection to the New England college town where I grew up. It's fiction - but who knows what tendrils of truth, remembrance, and long ago loves sprang up in the soil of imagination. The story has waited forty years, gathering dust, and is finally in print along with its companion volume. It is bursting into blossom, a fine wine uncorked after decades. The companion volume of poetry is Cymbalist Poems, and the two books have been reunited (twins separated at birth) in the book titled 27duet. The poems compiled by 1976 represent the natural ending of my lyrical phase. I was a professional author and summer interne newspaper reporter at 17, and a published poet by 18. This is New Adult (20s) long before today's marketing category--fresh, artful, and emotionally honest.

Written by a young soldier in 1976 Cold War West Germany and forgotten for forty years, it glows as fresh today as it was when I composed it in Paris and Heidelberg and other European cities where I traveled in my old orange VW as a single, adventuresome young man. Like many soldiers far from home, I was having the time of my life but idn't know it. I was homesick, and spent many evenings going back to our headquarters in an old Hitler-era kaserne or barracks to lose myself in writing poetry and fiction. This novel was a nostalgic, melancholy, but passionate retrospection to the New England college town where I grew up. It's fiction - but who knows what tendrils of truth, remembrance, and long ago loves sprang up in the soil of imagination. This romantic coming of age novel tells of the passionate love affair etween a 23-year-old idealistic, talented poet and a beautiful, neglected young married woman in a New England college town set in 1973. The story has waited forty years, and is taking a little time to blossom, like a fine wine uncorked after decades. The companion volume of poetry is Cymbalist Poems, and the two novels have been reunited (twins separated at birth) in the book titled 27duet.

Reading is believing: The star of this duet is the author's "27" coming of age novel, written nights among moths and ghosts in an old Hitler-era army barracks to strains of Mozart. He was a young U.S. Army soldier, stationed in 1970s West Germany during the Cold War. Captured together after forty years gathering dust - twins separated at birth and reunited nearly a half century later - these two books will amaze you with their magic, beauty, melancholy, and passion. The author wrote poetry with talent and discipline through his teens and twenties, a published poet at 18 who flared out at 27 and left the select poetry of a finished career eclipsed in obscurity. He became a professional writer at 17 as a summer interne newspaper reporter in New Haven, and a starving novelist in his early 20s before hitching and driving across the USA (among many adventures) and settling in San Diego, from where he enlisted in the U.S. Army. Stationed in West Germany, he owned an orange VW van and traveled extensively with many adventures. At the same time, like all G.I.s, he was lonely and missed *the World* as troops far from home call the USA. He would return to the barracks alone at night - when all was still, under the lantern of Lili Marlene - and play Mozart while reimagining lives and loves of a past half memory and half myth. The poems and the novel he wrote among moths and ghosts are still fresh and readable today - presented here, for the first time, in a single volume together. The novel On Saint Ronan Street is a nostalgic retrospective on his lost past in New Haven - wellspring of his poetic art; and its women, his first loves. Titled cryptically Jon+Merile in manuscript, and left to gather dust for 40 years, it is the story of a 23 year old poet's wild love affair with the beautiful, neglected young professor's wife in a New England college town. The poems: The second book in this volume (Cymbalist Poems) contains the author's collected favorite poems from among hundreds written in over a decade, before his lyric flare-out at 27. He was a published poet and professional journalist at 18; a serious writer through his teens and twenties. Like the mythological "27" when rock stars crash and burn, other creative souls undergo a life change in their late twenties as well. In this author's life, he turned his passion and talent to writing prose. In these two books, the poetry resonates in the narrative, while each poem offers an intriguing glimpse of myth and story. In the novel, talented, passionate, and handsome 23 year old poet Jon Harney graduated from a small college, and is now mowing lawns and doing other odd jobs around Yale University while showing his verse portfolio to New York City publishers. He meets a lonely young woman, Merile Doherty (pronounced like 'Merrill' for reasons revealed). She beautiful, intriguing, and fun. Merile's husband Bill is an archeologist at Yale University. Bill is older and colder, vacant at affection, always gone, never quite there for her. He is Absent Without Emotional Leave (AWEL). When Merile and Jon meet, she's been alone again for too long. Bill is far off in Australia digging for bones - and also digging chicks in Sydney. He phones to tell her he has fallen in love with an Australian woman, and is going to leave Merile. That's before he calls to tell her he isn't. That's how it goes. Merile is vulnerable and Jon Harney is smitten. Their chemistry is incendiary. Like hungry young wolves, they can't get enough of each other. Their mad, passionate love affair is as glorious as it is doomed. In this 27duet, the author's twin books - separated at birth - are finally united after forty years gathering dust. The light that shines half as long shines twice as bright, to paraphrase Roy in Blade Runner. The author's light continues to shine, in another century and another life (see the Amazon author pages for Jean-Thomas Cullen, John T. Cullen, and John Argo).

Cymbalist Poems is a collection of the author's favorite 64 poems from among hundreds he wrote during a youthful career of great passion, technical skill, and esthetic taste. He was a published poet by 18, began summarizing his life's poetry in his mid-20s while living, working, and traveling in Europe (1975-1980), and reached his "27" in 1976. That is the age when rock stars famously flame out. It is no different with lyrical poets (e.g., Arthur Rimbaud, Rainer Maria Rilke, and many others). In a remarkable twist, the author also wrote a passionate, exciting novel around age 27--his first adult novel, set in a New England college town (shades of John Updike!)--dealing with the fiery love affair between a struggling but courageous young poet and a beautiful young married woman. She is a faculty wife, married to a man who is never there for her but is always absent without emotional leave. As the novel transpires, her husband is on an archeological dig far off in Australia, where he is also digging the chicks. In fact, in their back and forth marriage, he calls to tell her he is leaving her for another woman, before he calls to tell her he isn't. While the novel was written in 1976, retrospective to an already lost world of 1973, the manuscript was all but forgotten for 40 years and resurrected in 2016. Remarkably, the story remains as fresh today as it was then. This is a youthful novel by a 27 year old author, writing a not only about the agonies and ecstasies of his own ambitions as a poet, but also a kind of loving and symphonic tribute to the city (New Haven) where he grew up which is forever gone from his life, but also a glowing and sensual retrospective on a swirling mosaic of fictional and perhaps remembered love stories from his own amorous life with attractive and brilliant young college women. The amazing coup that follows is this. The novel, and the author's final book of poetry, traveled on separate paths for forty years. With the publication of the novel, it was not until galleys that it occurred to the author that he must absolutely include some of his own poems from long ago--to validate the struggles of the novel's hero, a fictional character named Jon Harney, who wishes to stay modestly anonymous, and therefore writes in the pseudonymous persona of a fictional Russian emigre named Charles Egeny. Shades of Vladimir Nabokov, Jon tells Merile as they lie in bed together one night. Thus, after separate journeys of 40 years, the two books (novel and poems) have clicked together, and a whole brilliant new set of lights have sprung to life--a perfect union, like that of Jon and Merile (except... well, please read the novel to find out what happens). And enjoy the poetry. The two books are a matched set that found each other, like two long-lost lovers, and begging for you to enjoy them. On a separate note, the poetry collection spans primarily twelve years and is organized to describe a trajectory in life. In real life, the poet spent his childhood in Europe but grew up in Connecticut, which he passionately documented through his college years at the University of Connecticut and his early adulthood in New Haven. He writes the final poems as a soldier stationed in Europe, where he enjoys travel to Paris, Brussels, and other great places--but always returns to the barracks to type all night while listening to Mozart and enjoying fine beers and wines. In the end, the trajectory brings him to San Diego and the women he married, with whom he finally found the love he sought, and has enjoyed for over thirty years to this day.