Presenting Sloan Bashinsky's Novel, "Heavy Wait, A Strange Tale"
PublishAmerica (2006)
Also an ebook through Amazon and other online booksellers
(Spanish edition in progress)
Note From the Editor: Key West’s Sloan Bashinsky shares reader’s thoughts on his gripping novel ‘Heavy Wait, A Strange Tale’:
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Key West resident and former Monroe County (Florida Keys] Mayor Shirley Freeman recently told me that she thought she would read ‘Heavy Wait’ because I wrote it and gave her a copy, but after she started reading it, she couldn’t put it down; she loved it. When she said, it really was all made up, wasn’t it? I reminded her of the inscription:
‘To Mayor Shirley Freeman, thank you for your longstanding service to the Florida Keys. None of this tale is true but the parts you believe are true “
Shirley said again, it was all made up, wasn’t it? I told her some stories from my life, which were similar enough to what the main characters in the tale experienced, to convince Shirley it might not be all made up.
I said the novel started falling me three days after I’d dreamt of it while sleeping on flattened cardboard boxes in doorway next to the Fleming Street bookstore in Key West, but I had to travel two days from Key West to Helen, Georgia, to meet someone who would say something which would explain the dream.
I said I kept telling a woman I was getting to know in Helen that the book was being written by God, I was just taking dictation. I didn’t tell her any details. After six weeks, the novel was finished, I printed it out and gave her a manuscript copy. After she read it, she said the novel was written by God. I told Shirley the woman and I then became an item, but that was a different wild tale I didn’t figure was time to go into. Shirley agreed.
Islamorada, Florida Keys resident Louise Wilson, whom I have known since I was 18 years old (I’m 71), wrote some time back:
“I ordered `Heavy Wait’ four weeks ago [from PublishAmerica, which prints to order] and it arrived in the mail Friday. I finished it last night. Could hardly put it down and if my eyes had cooperated a little longer I could have gotten through it in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday. I enjoyed it very much, laughed out loud (heartily) many times and enjoyed the twists and turns and surprises. I think you should write another novel soon. And I can say, I would look forward to reading it. For now I think I will read, `Kill All The Lawyers.’”
Kill all the Lawyers? – A Client’s Guide to Hiring, Firing, Using and Suing Lawyers, non-fiction, now out of print but some used bookstores carry it, was my farewell to the practice of law. It killed a few clients, too. Heavy Wait, allegedly fiction, also kills a few lawyers and clients, although not in the same exact way.
Recent comments on ‘Heavy Wait’ from a Big Coppit Key amigo:
I recently completed Sloan Bashinsky’s novel Heavy Wait. Having become addicted to Sloan’s daily blog Goodmorningfloridakeys.com I was eager to read it and purchased it from him at a local book event. Though something of a writer myself I am an awkward reader and must confess to not having completed a full length novel in years. Sloan’s book kept me engaged to the end.
I was curious to see how it would compare with his blog which is an amalgam of political gadflyism, religious zealotry, self deprecating wit, and an infuriating ethical standard impossible to emulate. Sloan’s book did not disappoint.
Sloan’s inimitable voice ambles on effortlessly leaving in its wake some literary firsts (to my knowledge)- a compelling erotic scene with an obese woman, and a workman like walkabout through the morass of legal, financial, tax issues the like of which I’ve not read from John Grisham or Michael Lewis. Sloan was a practicing attorney and his knowledge is informed and intellectually honest. I would not want to go up against Sloan in court or in a tête-à-tête as many have discovered in quarrels to be followed in his blog posts.
It is good fresh read to be highly recommended.
Steven Allerton, Harpist in Key West, Fla. – Dolphin Whistle
Quincy, Illinois amiga Gloria, Reiser. a professional psychic, to whom I sent the manuscript before the tale was published, wrote on Facebook:
Re Heavy Wait, a question: WHO was your real life Mary Lou?!? You don’t have to answer in public if you don’t wanna…. but through the years all your wives and near wives have become scrambled in my mind. Betty and Cathy and Pat and Debora stand out… the rest are a blur.
Sloan Bashinsky wrote:
Mary Lou was a composite. You may not remember one of my wives whose name I won’t say. Patricia came on as the novel was being written, I did not know we were going to be an item until after it was finished. She is not in the composite, nor is Cathy, nor is Deborah. You do not ask who was my real life Willa Sue, who became the most famous woman in America. Maybe in the whole world.
Gloria Reiser wrote:
I haven’t gotten to Willa Sue yet. With travel and the Thanksgiving holiday, I’m having to grab a read here and there 5 minutes or so at a time. I’m just to the point where Riley has come out of the catatonic state in the psych ward. But appreciating and enjoying the book more this time than I did when I read it the first time.
Sloan Bashinsky wrote:
You just finished the wild part, which is where the Kindle preview ends, before the really wild parts …
Gloria Reiser wrote:
Oh, if the preview stops there, it should sell books. People will be wanting to find out what comes next. I didn’t check the preview before purchasing, as I knew I wanted to read the whole thing again.
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Set in Birmingham, Alabama (my home town) and around Port St. Joe and Apalachicola, Florida, this curious tale is about a lawyer who gets snatched by God and turned every which a way but loose, ditto for a woman he took a shine to. Although there are religious people in the tale, it is not religious and I probably will not be invited to speak at an annual Southern Baptist Convention gathering.
Heavy Wait: A Strange Tale by Sloan Bashinsky
$9.95 Kindle Edition
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Other Formats: Paperback
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Sloan Bashinsky