Monday Afternoon

The pitch made me curious and I’m glad I read further. You got a strong voice, though the narration is a bit lengthy in places (just my take). I enjoyed and backed it. Good luck.
Dan

All romances need something to keep the lovers separated - and you have. I like how he comes clean though. There's enough humor to keep it interesting. And there's enough similarities to make me turn my head - as an English teacher and one who grew up Catholic....

I do like what I have read. You have crafted a most interesting and complex romance story and your strong command of the English Language clearly shines through. Your character development of Angelo and Monica is well done and your descriptive writing makes your work a pleasure to read. Backed.

Andrew Burans
The Reluctant Warrior: The Beginning

Monday Afternoon - Some of the paragraphs are long and could easily be made into two or three to hold the interest of fhe skittish reader, but who cares. [Oh, that's right; you do.] Anyway, this is excellent writing and an interesting story line. There is the occasional unnecessary 'that' and maybe the hook at end of chap 1 could be a little stronger, but this is really good and shelved.
G
Einstein's Road Trip [I would like to see your take on Einstein if your time allows. Thanks.]

Hi Steve
This is a good opening with the tension building and the sexual interaction plain to see. The language is eloquent and beautfiully descriptive. A few sentences and paragraphs were a bit on the long side on screen and I think these would look even long in print. Overall though it is very engaging and intriguing and the plot seems strong. Would be interested to find out what happens later.
DP Walker
Five Dares

I like your opening, although the first sentence is somewhat winding, but it serves as an introduction to a nicely literary narrative. You've got a good touch for being inside the academic's head but then moving them into the mundane -- for instance, Monica's quote followed by a high-five. I think you've shown a lot of discipline here. Happy to back it.
Craig
The Job

Brilliant writing, there's no doubting that, although I have to agree that's a heck of a first sentence. That aside, the character development in this is superb, bringing your cast immediately to life. Excellent work, and backed with pleasure.
Abi xxx

I continued reading despite a lead sentence that could vie for the longest one in 21st century literature. And I'm glad I did. This is very deft writing. It takes a little while for the story to captivate, but the fluid prose and excellent character development kept me in the game. The jury is still out as to whether I'll become fully engaged by this book, but what I've read is certainly good enough for me to keep reading, and good enough to land "Monday Afternoon" on my shelf this fine Tuesday morning.

Backed.

Best,

G
Notes on an Orange Burial (a tragicomedy)

Angelo is a well thought out charcacter who fascinates. Strong writing and great plot.

Backed

I liked the summary and the plotline, but I somehow couldn't get into the writing. One aspect I felt was that your first sentences/paragraphs (on all three chapters) somehow didn't draw me in. This might be just me, or it might be a broader issue.

Steve: the short pitch worked. That long pitch? A bit presumptuous on your part in that last paragraph to make that claim. Anyway, perfecting your pitches is how you climb in ranking to gather more exposure and comments to better your novel. The writing is good so I am SHELVING you.

Though I have been a very active member for over a year, I can still use your comments on my book when you get the chance. Every little bit helps. Cheers!

JC
The Obergemau Key

This is a good story. Both Monica and Angelo are good characters; it's obvious from their first meeting that they'r soul mates. Makes a reader want to follow this to see if it can possibly have a good ending. And makes it a good read. I'm adding this to my shelf. Burgio (Grain of Salt).

Monday Afternoon

There are some brilliant and very engaging parts in this storyline that makes it a compelling read.
You create great characters and the dialogue is not only engaging it is at time very humorous. This has been a real find and I enjoyed this so much – Thank you.

MONDAY AFTENOON:

Steve and Tim,

I think my first query would be to ask: To whom is this story targeted. It is categorised as Literary Fiction, Romance, and Religious. At first sight these three don't sit very comfortably together. The problem being that as far as publicising the novel is concerned, the publishers need to give it a specific label. Unfortunately that 's the way pubishing has gone. I know that there are many cross-genres that are highly successful, and if I had the time to read the whole of this one, I would be better able to judge.

But the first thing I would do to make it more accessible, would be to shorten the paragraphs, and start with something that makes the reader feel at home in the book, and that's he's in a genre he is familiar with.

Having said that, I really love the pitch, which indicates that the novel bristles with intrigue, conflict and drama. It is also beautifully written, and I have no doubt whatsoever, that when the novel has been completed, (and it is only then that the author can make a measured jugement of how the story will finally take shape,) that we will have something that is different and thoughtful and beautiful.

Backed, with pleasure.
Sheila (Pinpoint)

I found it a little hard on the eye, lots of text and not much white space. There was also the odd typo. However that aside I enjoyed the read. I found some humour and depth to your story .It will be interesting to see how it develps. Hard to tell as only three chapters posted. Will come back for more if you post it.
Regards Sue
Knowing Liam Riley

A class act. Slow, stately, witty and, in the very best sense - old fashioned and , yes, even crafty. Perhaps a little use of Occam's razor is needed here and there....but it must be backed. DB ALL THESE ARE MEMORIES OF MY VOYAGE

Backed.

Jesse - Savant

This is a very promising story...I agree that it needs trimming. Under all the monologuing and bantering fluff, there are many gems that deserve to be extracted and polished, to great effect. I think Monica is as uncomfortable as Angelo when they meet, hence all the one upmanship literary references and such. I kept wanting them to get serious and tender as they should have...this is a timeless story, that definitely deserves backing! What happens next???

I enjoyed reading this. Following Angelo's experience and thought process taps into almost secret human emotions. I think the paragraphs of 'thought' could be broken up. The visual collection of words can make processing a distraction from the story itself.
Wonderful story. Great characters that are easy to understand and identify with.
Backed,
Tracy
The Guardians

This is excellent writing but I must say that in places I feel it needs to be shortened. The story is marvelous and with a bit more editing I think is a book that will appeal to many readers. I enjoyed the dialogue and feel the interaction between the characters is exceptional. I hope you plan to post more.

Sasha/Smurphgirl
A Crack in the Mirror

When I was a kid my grandfather gave me a silver dollar that was minted in 1880. Oh I thought it was so cool. I loved it. And I carried it in my pocket inside my hand carved leather coin purse I had sewn in cub scouts. Well the stitching of the purse unraveled in this tree scaling / hayloft swinging farmboy’s pocket and I lost the coin. Two summers later - I found my coin in a pig pen (yeah, we had pigs) and I took it to the water pump (God this sounds like I’m going to say that Auntie Em told me to quit lollygagging) and I washed off the sty and I put the coin inside my shoe so I wouldn’t lose it again. (quick aside, I sold it to a coin dealer while I was in college so I could buy beer. Wtf?)

Here’s my point - there are many treasures in the middle of all of this. There are lovely moments between the characters. There is dialogue that rings with truth.

Yet there’s a lot of waste the needs to be trimmed. Yeah, I know. Mud is just moist earth and earth is a necessity. And I understand the need and the want of retaining some of this prose. Well, it’s work for instance. Each words is a sweat bead. But it’s covering up the shining and the worth. It’s gotta be trimmed. I’d suggest going to the beginning and backspacing through every word that isn’t essential. You’ll discover a tight text that is valuable and worth the effort.

Mark R. Trost
“Post Marked.”

This sets the stage for a fascinating love stoy, yes. However, I find the lengthy sentences and long paragraphs a bit much. Readers are lazy. They need the writer to take short breaths. Occasional long ones are nice. I wouldn't start off with such a long sentence.
It just feels a bit "talky".
Still, that said, who wouldn't back love. I back this for its risk-taking.
Best,
Ellen
(Thoughts of a Teenage Girl)

Steve,
The writing is generally excellent - some parts really dazzle. The opening paragraph, for example - "What a glorious assessment of Work that was!" - was almost archaic in tone - it could come from Knut Hamsun or Dostoevsky - but it really worked for me. "He'd been told he was doing a good job" - subtle writing, hinting at self doubt. (He does not, later in the chapter, come across as a man who suffers greatly from lack of self esteem, but he wouldn't be the first writer to combine arrogance and vulnerability.) There's some splendidly inventive imagery (the sun "filigreed numerous patterns", "scatological emphasis". The line about not raphsodizing over cowshit made me laugh out loud, and reminded me of Hazlitt's withering analysis of Romantic poetry - "a puddle is filled with preternatural forces."
The dialogue I found sometimes overblown, but consistently smart, often touching, and funny. And, although I was quite prepared to cringe when I read the poem, I loved it.
This strikes me as a poet's novel, and as such will not appeal to many people, and will be unlikely to make you rich. But, personally, I liked it a lot. Backed.

Hi Steve, to be honest, the long paragraphs made for difficult reading. Maybe they will lay more gracefully on the page than on the screen. I hope so. In the meantime, I'll give it a spin on my shelf. Good luck!

Very cleverly written. BACKED and enjoyed, Barry (Little Krisna and the Bihar Boys)

You have created a place where lonely hearts that don't even realize they are lonely can smile and, as Monica says, be happy forever. The phrasing is witty as well as indulgent. Can't wait to read more

Steve,

Monday Afternoon – Angelo who takes in the world through literary references meets his match. Quick-witted, sensitive, he knows how to give empathy but receives none from his wife, maybe because his empathy for her was exhausted. Habit has a habit of doing this. But there is conscience. When love becomes more important than any moral code a man has a problem. This is a delicate exploration conveying the excitement of a rare resonance – often feared and repressed because we can’t control its stay. It’s a pleasure to support such fine work.

Pia (Course of Mirrors)

I've not read anything like this for some time. This is such intelligent writing to be read and savoured, not a word should be missed. At times somewhat intellectual prose is lightened by everyday familiarity, the cow evacuating its bowels just the mention an example.
In the first chapter, you allow us to peek into the most fragile of things, the first meeting of like-minded people. We feel the thrust and parry of good converstion whilst sensing a simmering physical attraction.
Clearly you love language and introduce, me certainly, to words I must ponder over whilst enjoying the richness of this beautifully written vocabulary and intriguing story.
Admiration is all I can offer, that and my pleasure to back. Margaret.

I really liked the paragraph with the cows. I though that was interestingly sad, but a bit humorous as well. I also like what was said about the woman when Angelo first started to sum her up, how women like her were 'born with boyfriends'...... brilliant. I also like how fiesty she is. This is a really well written book; the language he uses is very sophisticated and mature and the characters are also very believable. This deserves to be backed. :)

Carrie L McRae

Dear Mr. Sangirdi,
My senses filled up afew paragraphs after they met. They certainly spoke the language of literature and I'm sure they, at first, feel they've gone to heaven. What a premise. My only suggestions might be to shorten the paragraphs. Congratulations. I truly hope this is published. It deserves it. I will proudly shelve Monday Afternoon.
KC Hart
Summer Rose

Steve,

I felt both uncomfortable and comforted by reading your work: It reminded me of me, a long time ago, flush with the drama of being a literary man--and becoming entranced by a beautiful literaly woman. Brilliant ripostes between us with no explanation needed. Whom was seducing who? (God knows if I used "whom" and "who" properly).

Mowing the fucking lawn (men spend more time cultivating their lawns than their friendships); cosmic desperation on a Wheel Horse. The ennui of Monday morning; despite advancement in one's field the haunting feeling in one's gut that there has to more to life--and the joy of finding another human being who understands the feeling. And our baser instincts also manifesting; why not get into her pants, too?

The writing is superb and always self-depracating. Loved it! Backed.

I really don't have time to more than dip into chapter one, and what I've read makes me regret that, good luck with it backed Maggie P.

As I am not the writer of this book (only its presenter), I would like to review it too:

Angelo Aiello is a New York, Italian Roman Catholic – very New York, very Italian and more Roman Catholic than makes any pragmatic sense nowadays.

He has a wife whom he dreads, a thirteen year old daughter whom he reciprocally adores, and a vengeful, jealous God that he fears.

Over fifteen years of marriage, his wife, Alice, has learnt to be outraged by Angelo’s jealousy, wounded by his lack of sympathy for her nervous breakdown after her sister died of AIDS, to despise his writing, and to resent the fact that he earns the least of any male in her family, plumbers and electricians included (well, they would be).

He in his turn feels unheard and under-appreciated, regretting that all that he was taught to value in his childhood and undergraduate days has been set at nought during his marriage, while his wife’s plimsoll line attests to her sinking deeper into the cookie jar as every year goes by until she resembles a sack of Orioles.

Then, while wandering around the Stamford Museum & Nature Center in the State of Connecticut (the self-proclaimed land that is ‘full of surprises’) he meets the beautiful, smart, playful and vulnerable Monica, a fellow English teacher, lover of all that is literate and deconstructionist.

While Alice dismisses his creative writing as wasting good earning time, Monica is independently wealthy and cares only for his mind and for his body. While Alice has no intention of plunging into the murk of Angelo’s dreams, Monica is up for discussing them even before her first cup of coffee of the day, but only after their first quotidian love-making. As they sit in Friendly’s together becoming acquainted, Angelo realises that Monica’s lively intellect and moistening quim are both irresistibly headed in his direction.

Ah, but as the saying goes “for everything you get which is worth gaining, you have to give up something which was worth keeping”, in this case Angelo’s close stewardship of his young daughter and the approval of his God. In his furtively religious mind, everything that will go wrong in his world will be as a result of his authoritarian God’s disruption of his adulterous path in favour of that righteous one which is more respectful of his marriage vows, whatever his second God, Sigmund Freud, may opine on the perils of becoming a slave to duty.

When Angelo’s mother-in-law is hit by a car in a freak accident, the question is who or what, if anyone or anything, will survive the wreckage.

Those of us conversant with Steve’s intense and classical style of writing will know of his penchant for obscure words and concepts. I thought that ‘pococurante’ was a typo for God knows quite what (as did Bill Gates) until I discovered that it was of Italian derivation, first (and probably last) used in the English language in 1815 denoting whatever, really (really – it means ‘caring little’).

‘Monday Afternoon’ is written in five parts, each of which races like a frantic stallion around an antiquarian’s copious library, kicking off with the scene of Angelo meeting and falling in lust / love with Monica which is as visceral a description of the physiology of enchantment as I have ever encountered in literature. It verges on the multi-sensory.

The Master has returned with another cracker!
Backed.