'Now I'm Here' is now an audiobook! My sixth novel is narrated by Tim Curran.

 
Good news, everyone! (I love saying that. Dr. Farnsworth is so silly.) 

Anyway, to get to the point, my sixth novel is now an audiobook, and you can listen to it on Audible. Veteran journalist Tim Curran is the narrator and I had a terrific time going through the book and making slight changes and sharing thoughts on understanding the characters to bring their voices to life. It's really been a great experience and Tim is an audiobook narrator whom I highly recommend. 

 On to the story, which you may know about by now, but I think I'll just share some of the press release below.

 about Now I'm Here

 A passionate story of the love between a Queen-inspired piano prodigy and a pumpkin farmer, author Jim Provenzano’s sixth novel, Now I’m Here has been adapted as an audiobook narrated by Tim Curran, with a November 15 release on Audible.

Now I’m Here is set in the small fictional town of Serene, Ohio, in the 1970s and ’80s. Two boys from different families – Joshua, with his stable middle-class home in town, and David, raised by his alcoholic and abusive father on their isolated farm – discover, then lose, then find each other again. Thirty years later, as the town’s history is slowly erased by fading memories and encroaching suburbia, their childhood friend, Eric Gottlund, tells the tale of their quiet heroism with poignancy and a sharp eye for detail.

Narrator Tim Curran

Combining literature and music, the author blends historic and contemporary topics. In Now I’m Here, two Southern Ohio teenage boys, Joshua Evans (a piano prodigy) and David Koenig (a pumpkin farmer’s son) attend a Queen concert in 1978 on their first date. Their passionate affair grows into a life together full of farming and concerts in their barn.

Joshua’s brief fame as a musician includes an invitation to perform in a Los Angeles talent show. He also gains a bit of notoriety by performing unusual solo versions of pop songs at West Hollywood New Wave nightclubs of the early 1980s.

Fighting religious intolerance, “rehabilitation therapy,” the lure of fame, and the heartbreak of AIDS, the two boys grow into men before our eyes. Through their love of each other and of rock’n’roll, the English rock band Queen in particular, Joshua and David breathe life back into their home town, if only for a while.

Published review excerpts for Now I’m Here:

San Francisco Examiner
The British rock group Queen ­–a touchstone of Provenzano’s adolescence– serves as muse, role model and escape hatch for the rural Ohio teenagers at the center of Now I’m Here, a wrenching love story that delves deep into the experience of growing up gay in heartland America during the late 1970s.

The book and each of its chapters share titles, and themes, with Queen songs. The lyrical prose and fine-grained detail of his novel are a far cry from the jubilant bombast in the film’s trailer. Now I’m Here offers flipside of a biopic, focusing not on celebrities’ lives, but on the faraway lives of people they touched.

 

 San Francisco Review of Books
“California author Jim Provenzano joins the great novelists who have written important and lasting novels about men in love, and while he has won prizes for his work it is now, with his publication of Now I’m Here that he joins the ranks of the major authors who have had a lasting imprint on our society and the LGBTIQ community.

 “Words of admiration and appreciation fail the task of honoring this fine novel. Provenzano knows this period, the highs and lows of two men in love living in a world that simply could not or refused to understand their love. The only entry point into the glow of this novel is by reading it at least once – and probably more. It is a masterwork of the highest order.”

Edge Media Network
“Joshua and David, the brave couple brought to life in Jim Provenzano’s captivating, unforgettable novel, Now I’m Here, manage to experience a quintessential epic romance albeit in just a few short years. Were it not for the admiring (and admittedly jealous) eye of their friend, Eric Gottlund, who meticulously narrates this heartbreaking, breathtaking story, the saga of Joshua and David could have easily gone unnoticed.

“This storytelling method effectively and passionately conveys the lengthy, turbulent evolution of their compelling, inspiring and uplifting relationship. The love story of Joshua and David reminds the reader how to appreciate the extraordinary in the ordinary. Professionally speaking, neither of these men achieves fame or accomplishes anything especially newsworthy, but what they share emotionally is nothing short of remarkable. Some books you read for laughter, intrigue, debate or information. Now I’m Here makes you feel.”

Out in Print
“I’ve always marveled at the contradiction of hundreds of thousands of mostly straight sports fans stomping their feet and clapping to ‘We Will Rock You’ as done by Queen, probably the gayest rock band in history with the gayest front man ever. But whatever chord Queen struck, it resonates to this day with both fans and authors. In his newest novel, Now I’m Here, Jim Provenzano uses his knowledge as a fan and his skill as an author to tell the story of two small-town Ohio boys.

“Joshua Lee Evans had a musical gift from the beginning, and was fortunate enough to have parents who encouraged him to use those talents. David Koenig lived on a pumpkin farm and had a hateful, alcoholic father whose wife left him because of his temper and bad habits. It was love at first fight. But the maturation of those feelings was a long road, punctuated by music lessons and farm work. When it finally came together, however, the boys knew what magic it was. A stupid school streaking stunt (popular during the late ’70s and ’80s, when this takes place) puts David in a ‘rehabilitation’ camp for wayward youth courtesy of his father as Joshua leaves town for the big time after graduation, a cover version of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in his back pocket. They will come together again, rest assured, but even reunions are fraught with frailty in this sweeping, epic romance.

“This story will confound your expectations. If you’re looking for a Happy Ever After, however, forget it. And that’s fine with me. Life does not always have happy endings, and sometimes we have to work to find meaning when our characters are given a less-than-optimal finish.

“All this would mean nothing in the hands of a lesser writer, but Provenzano has honed his craft and takes you on this dizzying ride with the able assurance of a pro. His rendering of the mid-‘70s is deadly accurate, and will bring a smile of remembrance to your face if you were coming of age then. He never missteps or falls short of the mark emotionally, either. The characters are all organic, built and embroidered on with well-chosen detail.

“So, even if you’re not exactly a Queen fan (and why not, I wonder?), you’ll enjoy this supremely well-plotted and populated romance. Highly recommended.”

'Red, White & Royal Blue's adaptive elements

Gay romance novels have never been more popular than they are today.  The most popular example is of course “Red, White and Royal Blue,” Casey McQuiston's bestselling 2019 novel. The recent premiere of its film adaptation became the number one viewed film on Amazon Prime. And it's well deserved.

 

Having recently assigned both a review and an interview with the film’s director for my day job with the Bay Area Reporter as Arts Editor, I was happy to receive an unsolicited complimentary press packet of not only a book, but a pair of socks as shown in the main poster, along with a bookbag, a copy of the paperback tie-in and a red white and blue blanket.

 

But what surprised me more than the swag package, was how well the film adapted to the book by limiting it to the most essential parts of it and combining other aspects to make it fit into the two-hour time slot.

 

The film is directed, co-written, and executive-produced by Matthew Lopez, playwright of the gay seven-hour Tony Award-winning opus "The Inheritance," based on E.M. Forster's "Howard's End."

 

Of course, some elements had to be shortened, like the extensive emails and texts that Henry and Alex, the two lovers, send to each other, as well as the expansive quotes by prominent other figures and authors that they share, which compare the two's budding romance to  becoming “History, huh?”

 

So instead of just showing the text to appear to talk to each other in proximity which visualizes their growing intimacy.

 

I noticed a few changes that paralleled my own adaptation of my first novel “PINS” when in 2002 I was commissioned to turn it into a play for New Conservatory Theatre Center here in San Francisco.

 

Along with reducing entire wrestling tournaments to a mere sound effect with a few characters there were very large scenes that had to be cut (the criminal trial) or referenced instead of dramatized.

 

The additional change of having a queen and instead casting Stephen Fry as the king of England proved a clever casting decision.

 

One element that happened in both “Red, White & Royal Blue” and my own script was the removal of a younger sibling that had something to do with the story but was not essential. I mean the casting of a 10-year-old sister would not have been essential in my play. Similarly, in Lopez's co-written screenplay, Alex's sister is removed and all the things that she serves in the story are combined with other characters.

 

And –spoiler alert– the nemesis in the book is melded into a former liaison of Alex, who is in the film also journalist. The book version where the affair was leaked was very involved and not exactly cinematic.

 

Adaptations of good novels have always been a fascination for me. In a few cases when I had writer's block or structural problems, I would switch to reducing my story to a screenplay in order to get to the point. A novel can ramble but a screenplay has to make sense structurally and get to the point.

 

I'm thinking back to my days before I was even a published writer. As a teenager, the Peter Bogdanovich film adaptation of “The Last Picture Show” is a prime example of a terrific film adaptation.

 

In the old days of before streaming and Netflix, when a movie was shown on network TV or a local affiliate, you watched it when you could. I remember taking a paperback version of “The Last Picture Show" and through repeated viewings, highlighting lines in yellow that were spoken in the film I was taking a screenwriting course, I guess, without even knowing it. It taught me the importance of what's essential in terms of image versus dialogue or description.

 

But what about the aspects of romance and sexuality? While my two romance novels, “Every Time I Think of You" and its sequel “Message of Love” are –spoiler alert– pretty graphic in terms of its sexuality, it's because those scenes further the plot and the difficult relationship between two main characters, Reid and Everett, as ever becomes a paraplegic. How they are manage to have sex is a storyline that is essential to the rest of it.

 

For “Red, White & Royal Blue,” the kissing scenes, romance and eventual actual sex are shown in a way that's tasteful not graphic but also informative to the characters’ development. While my book includes a museum scene, it involved a comic abruptly interrupted blow job, while “RW&RB”’s museum scene is more solemn.

 

But as in her novel, McQuiston dodges the graphic specifics or “plumbing” with references and ellipses that usually jump to “Afterward,” meaning after they had sex.

 

My own books, which are more descriptive, are probably never going to be adapted into films. But hey it could happen. I did mention that I have a few screenplays ready to go!.

 

One essential part would be to have sexual scenes that develop the story, not just gratuitous showing of body parts.

 

Despite its mainstream style, it is actually quite surprising how far “Red, White & Royal Blue” goes in terms of depicting the sexuality.

 

The fact that it's become such a huge hit gives me hope. Since “Every Time I Think of You" was one of my most successful books, it actually took me the least amount of time to write because it was so inspired. I'm certainly open to any adaptation that does it justice. Of course any writer would want that.

 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my books as well as Casey's and check out the Amazon Prime adaptation. I don't know where you can get those socks, but I enjoy the ones that I received.

 

'The Lost of New York,' a novel by John Rigney, Jr. - how a hidden manuscript became a novel 70 years later

 

Hidden away for more than half a century, my late uncle’s novel,

The Lost of New York,  is finally a book (May 6, 2022).

So, why did I task myself with the arduous process of converting a faded stack of chapters into an actual book? Mostly because it fascinated me. I also felt a sense of familial loyalty, seeing as my late uncle, John “Butch” Rigney, Jr., preceded me as the first writer in the family, albeit unpublished. His hand-typed writing made its way across country –twice– before being published. The gritty and sad urban tale, set in early 1960s Bronx, New York, may be unfinished, but is a captivating time capsule.

It’s also a revealing roman a clef of Butch’s own life, cut too short in 1967.

 from the novel’s Introduction:

John “Butch” Rigney wanted to be a writer.

Stories remain amusing about his young life, growing up with a brother, Maureen, and brother, Kevin. His two sometimes abusive often drunk parents, helped him become what his sister called “a throw-away kid. Nobody ever gave him a chance, helped him out.”

John "Butch" Rigney, Jr.

As a youth, Butch went in and out of a series of reform schools for stealing, and jumping in a river from the Teufelberg Bridge, named after the Dutch Devil’s Mountain.

His brother was also a petty thief,
robbing a neighborhood diner.

In the early 1960s, Butch also served in the Air Force, possibly as a bargain for another jail sentence. He was stationed in Anchorage, and got out with an honorable discharge

A letter was sent to his mother –Mrs. John M. Rigney- mistakenly presumed to be his wife, of a package of papers that were left at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey.

The early writings of Rigney are dated 1963. These “papers” may have been his early drafts of short stories (not in this edition), perhaps the letter and scant scribbled notes. A few of the short stories are signed D.Cno. with J.M. Rigney as the mailing name.