The Girl Who Founded Nebraska and Other Stories by Gary Carr
Short fiction includes “Ivan the Terrible at the Circus”, “The Danger of Theatre”, and “The Girl Who Founded Nebraska.”
“Among the laughs is a quirky sort of wisdom that makes the book one of those small treasures you’ll keep in the middle drawer of your desk.”
–Pat Craig, Theatre Critic, San Jose Mercury News.
Paperback, 78 pages, $14.00
Contact carrpool@pacbell.net to purchase
Furies’ Daughters: Four Feisty Women by Gary Carr
The four stories in this 234-page book include:
.Jenny Gets Her Wheels On is the story of a successful actress who suffers an accident that confines her to a wheelchair. Determined not to see her onstage career end, she changes course and becomes a popular “stand-up” comic.
The Girl with the Topaz Ring is a Rom-Com mystery. Josh Tanner learns from his dying father that he has a half-sister he never knew about. With the help of computer nerd Sarah, he begins the search for his shadowy sibling. As their quest becomes more complex, Josh realizes he needs Sarah more than he thought
The Ongoing Life of Margot Macomber imagines what might have happened to Margo immediately after the shooting of her husband in Ernest Hemingway’s short story, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. Foreign intrigue and 1930’s politics come to the fore as Margo works her wiles.
Thea and Fritz: Berlin 1931-1933 traces three years in the lives of Germany’s most famous screenwriter/director team. Thea von Harbou and Fritz Lang created two films that rank in nearly every critic’s all-time Top 100–Metropolis and M. The time is just before Hitler comes to power.
Paperback, 234 pages, $18.00
What the Critics are saying
Gary Carr’s characters and scenes in his four stories in Furies Daughters (Four Feisty Women) became alive as I read each one. Jenny, Krissy, Sarah, Margot and Thea, “feisty” as they are, show courage and are endowed with the strength to do more than survive. I connected with each woman as they negotiated physical, emotional and in one case political struggles and indeed, tragedy. For me, the reader/observer, I silently cheered and whispered to each: Keep letting them know that you are alive and no one to mess with.
–Jess Nadelman, author of Slow to a Trickle (and other stories)
Gary Carr spins four tales, each depicting women experiencing an array of challenges, and each handling them with determination and humor. The best piece is the final story, Thea and Fritz, which focuses on a pre-World War II buff who buys black market movie posters from a shady drug addict in the back alleys of Berlin, in nascent West Germany, 1952. This film buff drifts into a theatrical reverie about German filmmaker Fritz Lang and his screenplay-writing wife, Thea von Harbou. It’s a well written piece of historical fiction focusing on von Harbou and her famous director husband, Fritz Lang. Scenes from this couple’s filmmaking journey in Berlin dovetail into the burning of the Reichstag and the rise of Hitler. Very timely and followed by an epilogue of the couple.
The stories in this collection are poignant and varied, well written and engaging. Buy it!
–K.S. Haddock, novelist, author of Imagine My Surprise!
The Left Side of Paradise: The Screenwriting of John Howard Lawson by Gary Carr
Non-Fiction. The screenplays of John Howard Lawson provided roles for the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda, and Susan Hayward. Due to his political beliefs (for a time he headed the Communist Party in Hollywood) he was one of the “Hollywood Ten” indicted by the House Unamerican Activities Committee in 1946 and was blacklisted. He continued to write for the stage, where he had begun his career in the 1920s and 30s. A must-have for fans of 1930s and 40s Hollywood.
Hardbound, 118 pages, $20.00
Contact: carpool@pacbell.net to purchase
Vaudeville: A Play with Music by Laurence Carr
It’s 1919, and nine seasoned show folks are stuck in Philadelphia. While their world is the small-time circuit of third-rate theatres, they keep their hopes alive for fame and stardom – making it in The Big Time. Cohen and Cobb, Max Maxwell and Maxie, Mlle. Yvette – they’re a cross-section of the last generation of hoofers, comics, and novelty acts who kept America entertained while Vaudeville was king.
Paperback, 138 pages, $9.00
Contact: carrpool@pacbell.net to purchase
Coming Soon