I am a proud mom of two, who loves to read, write and just enjoy life. Watching my kids - 9 year old daughter and 5 year old son, grow is my greatest enjoyment. Blogging has also become something that I am having a blast with - it has been wonderful meeting so many people who share so many of the same interests. I am also pursuing writing in different areas and love working with authors on promoting and touring their great works!
I am very excited to share with readers an interview with Mary Carter, author of The Pub Across the Pond. I thoroughly loved this book and if you missed my review, click here to check it out! Now, please help me in giving Mary a HUGE welcome!
Hi Mary! It is a delight to have you here at Café of Dreams! I am a huge fan of your amazing work and look forward to each new release that you bring to readers.
Thank you. I’m delighted to be here!
To begin, can you please tell us a bit about The Pub Across the Pond?
The Pub Across the Pond is about an American woman living a stifling life in Cleveland Ohio, that is until she enters a raffle at the Dublin (Ohio) Irish festival and wins a pub in Ireland. Leaving behind a dependent father, and a friend who wants to take her place, Carlene takes off to a small village off the coast of Galway to start her new life as a publican. There she encounters a colorful cast of regulars and the handsome former owner who lost the pub in a poker game. Although there is quite a bit of romance and humor, I have to agree with Publishers Weekly who said the book is really rooted in Carlene’s own self-discovery.
I have always had a deep love for Ireland and hope to one day make my way to its gorgeous lands. What was it like to write about Ireland and its people? What types of research did you do to create such a vivid setting and story?
Before my trip, I too had always longed to visit Ireland. I live in a very Irish part of Queens and a lot of my friends here are from Ireland. My great grandmother was from Ireland so between the pub life here and growing up with stories of my ancestors, I already felt a strong connection before I even visited. I guess I would be remiss not to mention all the Irish men I’ve had crushes on over the years as well. The accent was always too good for me to resist, not to mention the wit, charm, and bad boy appeal. Regardless, nothing can compare to the actual month I spent in Ireland researching the book. I traveled all over, hit villages and cities, talked to the people, saw the touristy sites, took part in poker games, and horse races, saw live bands both traditional and Irish rock, and of course ate a lot of potatoes. Although I had the basic plot worked out before my trip, it certainly wouldn’t have been the same book without it!
What is a day of writing like for you? Do you set a writing schedule for yourself, or just “play it by ear”?
It depends on what stage of the writing process I’m in. I also work part time as a sign language interpreter, so my writing schedule has to work around that. Right now I’m working mostly afternoons and evenings, so I’m writing in the mornings and on weekends. Once I have a finished first draft, I usually lug it with me wherever I go. I constantly tell myself I’m going to set a more organized writing schedule, but so far it just hasn’t happened. That said, whenever I’m writing a book, I’m usually thinking about it on and off all day long—walking to the subway, on the subway, in class, etc.
I am always curious about whether or not authors ever go back, after their work has been published and on the shelves for other readers, whether or not they ever read their published and polished work? Do you?
Funny you ask that. Normally I can’t look at it. I find too many things I want to fix. So if I do re-read it, it’s usually short sections. Sometimes I come across passages I don’t remember writing and actually laugh or enjoy them. The Pub Across the Pond has been an exception. I’ve re-read it more than any of my other works. Maybe because I really wish that had been my life, so I still enjoy entering its world.
Who are some of your favorite authors and/or books?
I’m a varied and eclectic reader, so I always struggle answering that question. Some of my favorite recent books have been: The Room, Turn of Mind, Let the Great World Spin, Skippy Dies, and Thirteen Reasons Why. I also loved The Hunger Games series. I read what’s popular, I read classics, I read mysteries and thrillers, I read contemporary romances. Whatever strikes my mood! Tolstoy, Herman Hesse, and Steinbeck are my favorite classic authors. I loved Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. I love the playwright Christopher Durang. If I keep talking this would last all day and I have to get to the post office!
What are you reading right now?
I just finished The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore. I know I should be mentioning authors here but my kindle is out of sight and I’m rushing to finish this before I have to go to my other job.
If you could spend a day with any author – living or passed – who would it be and what would you plan for the day?
Definitely Herman Hesse. I read My Essays by Herman Hesse and two of them struck me so deeply I still think of them all the time. I don’t care what we’d do, walk around Switzerland, or Sunnyside Queens and I’d grill him about his essays. We’d probably end up having a drink or two as well.
Please tell us about your other works and what you have coming out in the near future/or are working on right now.
I’m currently working on a novel about a wife whose husband, after a traumatic Near Death Experience, buys a lighthouse behind her back and wants them to turn it into a bed and breakfast. It’s currently titled: The Things I Do For You, but my titles have been known to change. I will also be participating in a 2013 novella. It will be a romance that takes place in New Orleans.
Can you please tell readers a little about who Mary Carter is? Favorite things to do, pastimes, loves, dislikes, etc?
I live a pretty normal, “New York” life, which is kind of an oxy-moron since nothing about living here is normal compared to living anywhere else. I love travel, exploring the city, hanging out with friends, reading, live music, plays, and writing. I go on and off the exercise wagon, I daydream too much, and I’m currently single again, which could be a whole book on its own. Regardless, I’ve a life full of interesting stories that I can always draw upon for my novels!
Is there anything that you would like to mention to readers? Places where readers can connect with you?
I would just like to say thank you for reading my works! I have a Facebook page—Mary Carter Books, and a website, marycarterbooks.com. I love hearing from readers, so feel free to get in touch.
Thank you so much, Mary, for taking the time to answer my questions. I wish you the greatest of success in everything that you do!
Thank you!
About Mary Carter:
MARY CARTER is a freelance writer and novelist. The Pub Across the Pond is her fifth novel with Kensington. Her other works include: My Sister’s Voice, Sunnyside Blues, She’ll Take It, andAccidentally Engaged. In addition to her novels she has written two novellas: A Very Maui Christmas in the best selling anthology Holiday Magic, and The Honeymoon House in the best selling anthology Almost Home. She is currently working on a new novel for Kensington.
“Sometimes leaving home is the only way to find where you belong….”
Carlene Rivers is many things. Dutiful, reliable, kind. Lucky? Not so much. At thirty, she’s living a stifling existence in Cleveland, Ohio. Then one day, Carlene buys a raffle ticket. The prize: a pub on the west coast of Ireland. Carlene is stunned when she wins. Everyone else is stunned when she actually goes.
As soon as she arrives in Ballybeog, Carlene is smitten, not just by the town’s beguiling mix of ancient and modern but by the welcome she receives. In this small town near Galway Bay, strife is no stranger, strangers are family, and no one is ever too busy for a cup of tea or a pint. And though her new job presents challenges–from a meddling neighbor to the pub’s colorful regulars–there are compensations galore. Like the freedom to sing, joke, and tell stories and, in doing so, find her own voice. And in her flirtation with Ronan McBride, the pub’s charming, reckless former owner, she just may find the freedom to follow where impulse leads and trust her heart–and her luck–for the very first time.
Have you ever read a book where you felt as though you knew the characters, someone like them or could easily relate to them? You Never Know is a book exactly like that. It is incredibly down-to-earth and a story that could be anyone's.
As soon as I began reading, I was quickly immersed within Tobias' life and the struggles that he was forced to endure. Perhaps forced is too strong of a word; for it was Tobias' own decisions that sent him on a life course. Life decisions are not always easy and even though you know you are doing the right thing, as Tobias did, with his selflessness, there is a large impact nonetheless.
You Never Know is the story of Tobias, his life, his family's life and life decisions. Lilian Duval writes with amazing clarity, vividness, heart, soul and inspiration that will make readers instantly fall in love with her and her work.
Though subtitled "Tales of Tobias an Accidental Lottery Winner" this incident does not actually come into play until half way into the story. Within the first half, readers will get to know Tobias, his brother , Simeon, girlfriend, Carmela and additional friends and family. The hardships, financially and emotionally are prevalent during this time. Ups and downs and everything in between occur, much of which many readers will be able to relate to in one sense or another. In the second half of You Never Know, Tobias gets a delightful and wonderful surprise when he wins the lottery. Life should be much easier from that moment on; however it is anything but.
You Never Know is an engrossing and enjoyable read about real life and treasuring what you have and who you have. I highly recommend this story to anyone who simply wants a memorable read.
About You Never Know:
What happens when an ordinary person becomes extraordinary?
Tobias starts out in life much the same as any of us—not rich, not poor, with imperfect parents and unlimited ambition. When he’s twenty years old, his future is altered in irreparable ways after a tragic car accident pushes him down a new path. The once-promising anthropology major is forced to abandon his dreams in order to care for his orphaned, brain-damaged younger brother.
In his late thirties, Tobias works in a bookstore, trying desperately to make ends meet to support his family. His daily grind only reinforces the sadness that broken dreams and bad luck bring in their wake.
How many times have you heard someone say, “If only I won the lottery?”
When Tobias finds he has won the Mega Millions lottery, his unimaginable bad luck seems to have changed into unimaginable good luck … or has it?
Over peaks and valleys, this uplifting journey will challenge the limits of luck, life, and what we value most.
Find out more about the complications of Tobias’s friendship and rivalry with his best friend, Martin; the effects of all this bad luck and good luck on his marriage; and the struggles of his brother, Simeon, once a talented cartoonist, in … You Never Know.
Excerpt:
Chapter 1 Saturday, December 23, 1989, was the kind of tepid winter day that made people ask, “What winter?” Dark by four in the afternoon, but no wind, no bite, a gray curtain over the sky for most of the day, just barely cold enough to freeze the slush into a treacherous skin of black ice that coated the streets like slime in a dirty shower stall. Tobias skidded on it when he stepped off the New Jersey Transit bus from Port Authority. He was to call home from the bus station as soon as he arrived. He would wait in Amy’s Coffee House and pop out with his luggage when his father double-tapped the horn. The bus had pulled into Woodrock, New Jersey, at four-thirty PM, half an hour late in Christmas traffic. Tobias slung his overstuffed book bag over his shoulder and dragged his valise into the crowded restaurant. He bought a giant latte and sat on a bar stool at the end of the counter. Other college students were chatting about ski trips and courses and their current romances. Christmas carols played on an endless loop. The place smelled of cinnamon. The location of home was debatable. The longer he stayed away, the more separate he became from the family still living in Woodrock, to the point where he could almost forget them. Home was where his life was: Abington College in Maryland and the off-campus apartment he shared with Martin, his tennis partner, a math major planning on business school, who called Tobias a “liberal arts lefty.” They got along fine, were evenly matched on the courts, and took turns abandoning their apartment for a few hours when one or the other had a girlfriend over. They were both twenty, going on twenty-one, seesawing between adolescence and adulthood. Tobias took a gulp of coffee and scalded his tongue. His father would be sitting in front of the TV now, doing nothing, waiting for the phone to ring. His mother would be delaying dinner preparations, sneaking another glass of wine. His brother, Simeon, would be upstairs in his room, sketching or drawing. He sipped half the coffee and folded his arms over his book bag. Simeon, age fifteen, was a cartoonist. His pictures had appeared in the high school newspaper, the town newspaper, and the state magazine. Their mother was an art teacher, but no one had taught him cartooning; he just drew all day long–in class, where he was warm in art and cold in every other subject; at home, where he holed up in his room, away from the fighting; and anyplace he went where he had to wait in line. He didn’t talk much. When Tobias was eleven, Simeon was six, and already attracting attention with his cartoons. He entered the school art contest with a drawing of his first-grade teacher, emphasizing her long earrings and long face, a caricature that was otherwise flattering. The school principal called and demanded to know who, in fact, had drawn a picture too advanced for a first-grader. Their mother huffed off to school, carrying a Grand Union bag crammed with Simeon’s cartoons of the last year or so, mostly of family members, to back him up. Simeon won the prize: a drawing set containing colored pencils, chalk pastels, an eraser, a sharpener, and a blending stump, all in a tin box with compartments like a Swanson frozen dinner. Watching him sketch at the kitchen table, Tobias told their mother, “He’s talented because he practices so much. He never does anything else.” Simeon went on drawing without seeming to listen. “No,” their mother said. “He practices so much because he’s talented.” Tobias first saw his baby brother when he was two weeks old. He’d been sent alone at age five on a plane to his aunt Joyce in Encino, California, hovered over by flight attendants, at the time called stewardesses. Joyce, accustomed to covering for her alcoholic sister, took care of Tobias competently and joylessly for a month. On his return home, his father showed him the baby, asleep in a crib. “Here’s your new brother,” he said. “Just like you, only smaller.” By the time Tobias was twelve, his mother was drinking in the mornings, her coffee mug filled with wine, and couldn’t get Simeon off to elementary school. Tobias packed his brother’s lunch every day before he left for middle school, taught him to tell time, and made sure he got out the door on time, while their mother went back to bed. Tobias finished his coffee and asked the girl next to him to watch his stuff while he went to the men’s room. Someone was on the pay phone at the back of the restaurant. He ordered another coffee the same size. He wouldn’t be able to sleep. But rather than making him jittery, the caffeine was calming him, and he cast around for something to look forward to after this visit. He was always thinking, When this or that happens, then I’ll be happy. It was never now; it was always later. Maybe happiness is forever anticipating being happy, he thought. Getting what you want doesn’t equal happiness. His was a life always heading somewhere but never arriving. At the moment, he was looking forward to three things: One, seeing his brother, his only family member who was not stuck in time or moving backward. Two, perversely, for this visit to be over. And three, his undergraduate anthropology fellowship in the rainforests of the Peruvian Amazon and the Yanomami territories of Brazil and Venezuela. His father had forbidden Simeon to draw or paint until he raised his grades in school, where he was making As in art and Cs and Ds in all his other tenth-grade subjects. Twice, Tobias had mediated on the phone long-distance, to no avail. Simeon could draw with a fingernail in the dirt, but missed his art supplies, which their father had confiscated for the semester. The phone at the back was free. Tobias felt in the front zippered flap of his suitcase for his family’s presents, all bought at the last minute from the campus store: an Abington College scarf for his mother, an Abington coffee mug for his father, and the book Best Cartoonists of the 20th Century for his brother. He lugged everything to the phone corner and started fishing for coins in his coat pocket, slowly. At the center table, students he had known in high school were staring at him. He turned his back and plunked a quarter into the phone. “Toby!” a voice boomed from the open door. A man stepped into the coffee shop. “Tobias Hillyer.” The thirty or so customers all stopped talking at once. “Holly Jolly Christmas” warbled on the soundtrack. Tobias grabbed his backpack and valise, scattering the coins from the phone shelf onto the floor. “Dad, I just got here. I was just calling you.” They hugged. “An hour late,” his father said, grinning under his winter hat, the kind with ear flaps. He cuffed Tobias on the head– only playfully. It hurt anyway. “Thanks for coming, Dad. Come on; let’s go.” Murmurs of conversation sprang up as they shuffled to the door. “Your mother wants us to stop and get Chinese food. No time to cook.” He put Tobias’s bags in the trunk. “So she said.” “Dad, please don’t put anything on top of the suitcase.” “How’s school?” “Good, fine, Dad. I got a work-study job tutoring. Doing all right. So I’d like to invite you all out to dinner.” Getting the family out in public would at least mitigate their initial meeting. They got in the car. “You still going down there with those pygmies?” “Dad, they’re Yanomami. Brazilian Indians, some in Venezuela. It’ll be all right.” “Yo Mama, that what you call them?” He laughed. Tobias ignored him the rest of the way to the house. He started to unlock the front door, which gave way before he turned the key. Still broken. “Hi, sweetie!” His mother embraced him. She reeked of wine, and her enthusiasm alarmed him. There would be a confrontation; he could sense it. “Good to see you, Mom.” He stepped into the kitchen, ostensibly to get a glass of water, but only to check the barrel of corks behind the kitchen door. The top of the barrel reached his waist, and it was full of corks, some still wet from the bottle. His mother was following him. “Sorry, honey, I didn’t have time to cook.” His father said, “Tobias has invited us out. He’s into money now.” “Mom. Dad. Let’s make this a good one, OK? How about in twenty minutes, we all go out and celebrate the Christmas season?” His head was hurting. If it weren’t for Simeon, he would have stayed on campus with the foreign students who lived too far away to go home on a holiday. He went upstairs to the room he had shared with his brother, who still had not emerged to greet him. Their bedroom door was closed. He knocked and walked in without waiting for an answer. “Toby!” Simeon grabbed him, laughing and jumping like a little kid. Tobias hugged him hard and thumped him on the back. “What are you doing, kiddo?” “Just goofing around.” Simeon’s desk was covered with cartoons drawn on notebook paper with pencil, his other materials still under lock and key. There were caricatures of school friends; drawings of girls he favored, endowed with plus-size breasts and deep cleavage; and one picture of their mother, wine glass in hand, and their father, apparently scolding her. Simeon was tall and thin like Tobias, but nearsighted. His rectangular glasses were always slipping down his narrow nose. “Toby. I got you something special. For your trip.” He opened his desk drawer. “Open it now.” “Today’s only the twenty-third.” “No, I have a regular present for you for Christmas. This is extra.” “Aw, I feel bad, Simmy. All I have is one gift for you.” “Doesn’t matter. This is for sticking up for me. Open it,” Simeon said, handing him a wrapped box. “Why now?” “Hey, you never know.” The present was heavy and solid, the size of a book, but denser. Tobias undid the wrapping paper. “Oh, man, Simmy, these are expensive.” It was a pair of Swarovski binoculars, 10 x 50 power, good enough for ornithologists in the jungle. “Oh, my God, Simmy, how could you do this?” Simeon took the box from his brother and spilled the accessories out on the bed. “They’re waterproof and fog-proof.” He took out the lens covers, eyepiece covers, carrying case, and neck strap. “I won some art contests.” “Simmy. Thank you. Thank you so much. I need these.” Tobias fingered the focusing knob. “These are great. Wow.” Simeon laughed. Someone was starting to climb the stairs. They packed up the binoculars, hid the box under the pillows, and hurried downstairs. Their father wanted to go to Vinny’s, their usual family restaurant. Tobias imagined the scene that would ensue. His mother would progress from tipsy to downright drunk. His parents would fight over how much she was drinking. Vinny’s had low ceilings, and you could hear every word from table to table. “Dad, in honor of this special occasion, I’d like to take you all somewhere fancy.” The town’s other Italian restaurant, the upscale one, had no liquor license and poor acoustics, where you could hardly hear a word across the table. “Come on, everybody. I’ll drive.” His mother was carrying a bottle of wine in a canvas tote bag. “No, Toby, you never drive at school. Sit in the back.” She opened the door of their Ford Escort. “He can drive,” his father barked and handed the keys to Tobias, and then sat in the front seat. Tobias wanted his brother to sit with him but didn’t complain. One hurdle cleared, and ten more days to go. He didn’t know how he was going to make it; his head was already throbbing. Simeon sat in the back behind Tobias and kicked the driver’s seat three times. Tobias grinned at him in the rearview mirror. All during dinner, Simeon drew. On a typewriter pad from his brother’s book bag, he sketched a detailed cartoon of Tobias. In the drawing, Tobias was wearing a safari hat and hip boots and carrying a butterfly net. A pair of binoculars hung from a strap around his neck. Their father scowled. “Simeon, quit scribbling, and join the family.” “He’s not scribbling; he’s drawing,” his mother said. “He’s OK, Dad.” Simeon was exaggerating his brother’s thick, dark hair in the cartoon, letting it droop over his forehead. In the picture, Tobias’s nose was pointy and slightly bent, but his real-life nose, though aquiline, was fine and straight, its hook scarcely noticeable. His features were so symmetrical that you would have to compare his photo and its mirror image to spot any irregularities. Simeon’s own nose was ineffective in holding up his glasses, which he poked upward every now and then. He printed Toby at the bottom of the picture, signed it SIM, and turned to a new page. “The food here is great,” Tobias said. He sprinkled some crushed red pepper on his spinach gnocchi in marinara sauce, which was delicious. He was ravenous, having skipped breakfast to catch the Greyhound bus from Baltimore to New York and having had nothing to eat all day but a bag of Fritos at a rest stop. “Yeah, great,” his father said. “Try this.” He poked a meatball with his fork and dropped it onto Tobias’s plate. “No thanks, Dad. This is fine.” Tobias returned the meatball and wiped his fork on the side of his plate. “He’s a vegetarian, remember?” his mother said. “Oh, sure, I forgot. He’s one of those tree huggers,” his father said. “At least put some cheese on that.” Tobias was about to explain about being a vegan when he had another idea. He reached out his hands to his father opposite him and his mother on his left. “Mom. Dad. Simmy. I love you all.” His mother clasped his left hand. “It’s Christmastime. We’re together. We’re doing OK.” His father clasped his right hand. “Let’s enjoy this meal and stop bickering.” Simeon stopped drawing and joined the circle of hands. Their mother’s eyes teared. Tobias paid the bill in cash over the objections of his father, who left a 20 percent tip. Simeon helped his mother with her coat. They got into the car in the same seats as before: Tobias in the driver’s seat, his father next to him, his brother behind him, and their mother next to Simeon. “Oh, rats! I forgot the sketch pad.” He started to undo his seat belt to run back in for Simeon’s cartoon, dreading the fight that might erupt among the other three at close range. “I’ll go, Toby. Stay there.” Simeon jumped out and ran into the restaurant before Tobias could open the door. On the way home, his father asked him about his fellowship and the trip to South America. Tobias, happy to break the tension, explained he’d be living among the Yanomami Indians and sleeping under nets, learning their language, taking notes for his research. “You’re distracting him,” his mother complained. “It’s icy.” “Goddamn it, stop interrupting,” his father snarled. “This doesn’t concern you.” Tobias approached the four-way intersection slowly and put on his left blinker. The light was red. “Careful,” his father said. “Let him be,” his mother said. Tobias checked all the mirrors. The light turned green. In the back seat, his brother was smirking. As he went into the turn, out of nowhere, a larger vehicle ran the light, sped into the intersection, and skidded into the right side and back of the Hillyers’ car. Tobias heard the deafening crack, like a thunderclap in the mountains, before registering the impact. The Ford spun around 180 degrees on the black ice. There were screams, splintering glass, scraping sounds, the sputtering motor. His hand turned the key and shut off the engine. His neck hurt. He shouted, “Mom! Dad! Simmy!” No one answered. He jumped out of the car, tried to open the doors on the other side. The entire right side of the car was crushed. His parents weren’t moving. In the street lights, he could see blood oozing out of their mouths. He ran back to the driver’s side, opened the back door. “Simmy. Simeon. No, no!” he screamed. “Somebody help, please!” Sirens, police cars, ambulances appeared as if in a nightmare. Paramedics brought something called the jaws of life. By the time his parents had been extricated, they were both dead. They were wheeled to ambulances on covered stretchers. Simeon was unconscious but alive. No injuries were apparent. They rushed him to the emergency room at Woodrock Hospital. A police officer drove Tobias to the hospital with sirens on and lights flashing. The emergency room doctor came out of a white-curtained cubicle, holding a clipboard. “Mr. Hillyer?” he asked. Tobias looked around. The doctor meant him. “Yes.” “Who’s your next of kin?” “My parents,” Tobias said. “My brother. Where’s my brother?” “Your brother has a concussion and possibly some other head injuries. He’s unconscious. Any other family members nearby?” “My aunt in California. Grandparents in Florida. Can I see my brother?” The pad with Simeon’s drawing was under his arm. “We’re testing him now. Any other relatives? Other grandparents?” “One in a nursing home. One dead. That’s all. Please take me to where my brother is. What’s wrong with him?” “He’s in a coma. We suspect a diffuse axonal injury,” the doctor said. “It’s a type of traumatic brain damage.” He looked behind Tobias, but no one was there besides the police officer who had brought him in. “How old is your brother? How old are you?” he asked. “He’s fifteen. I’m twenty. Twenty-one in March.” The doctor put his arm around Tobias. “I’m sorry, son,” he said.
About Lilian Duval:
Lilian Duval was born in New York City to French-speaking parents and went to public school with a French accent so thick that she was assigned to the slowest of four first-grade classes. “Thunder, not TUNDER!” the teacher scolded her in front of the class. “Mother, not MUDDER!”
“I got rid of my accent all right,” Lilian says in perfectly generic American English. “I also gained a lifetime habit of imitating people’s pronunciation. One of these days someone is going to punch me in the nose for that!”
She continues, “In those days, nobody worried about kids’ self-esteem. Medals for everybody? Forget about it! And those classrooms—they were labeled 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4. You knew where you stood from Day One.”
Undeterred, her mother cajoled the principal into moving Lilian to class 1-1, where she spent her extra class time making up little stories in the margins of her schoolwork. The teacher in P.S. 89 was not happy about those marked-up papers and let her know it.
“Things got better in the third grade,” she remembers. There was a school-wide writing contest at her elementary school in North Bellmore, Long Island. The topic was libraries. “I was pretty hopeless at sports,” Lilian admits. “If someone threw a ball, I ducked. But I liked books.” In her essay, she wrote that books in the library were like houses on a street, and the rows of shelves were like roads. The rest of her metaphors were good enough to win her the first prize, presented at a school assembly: the book “A Child’s Garden of Verses” by Robert Louis Stevenson. “I read it over and over, but was disappointed because I’d really wanted a trophy, like the athletes got.”
That contest was the beginning of Lilian’s writing career. Along the way she has held an improbable array of jobs. Here are some of them, in chronological order: Nurse’s aide in a nursing home at age 16, where her specialty was emptying bedpans. Bookkeeper’s assistant at O. Henry Steak House in Greenwich Village. Suburban reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Massachusetts, where a highlight was a report on the local pickle factory. Teacher of English as a second language to Indochinese refugees in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Instructor of computer programming at a professional school.
And, for 16 years, computer software developer for a long string of financial institutions in New York City, culminating with Lehman Brothers in the World Trade Center.
On September 11, 2001, Lilian was on a NJ Transit commuter train heading to New York when the terrorist attacks took place. Arriving at Hoboken Terminal, passengers were told to board trains and return home. All the PATH trains and ferries were carrying people one way only—west across the river to New Jersey.
Lilian’s husband, George, was already in his office at a brokerage firm on the 25th floor of One World Trade Center. “We couldn’t call him. He couldn’t call us. We panicked and couldn’t do anything.” Not until 2:00 p.m. did she and their three grown children learn that he’d escaped on foot across the Brooklyn Bridge while the towers were crumbling. Five days later, he revealed to his family that he’d been invited to a technology meeting at Windows on the World on the 107th floor that morning, but was so busy with administrative duties that he’d forgotten to attend.
“For two weeks after the attack, everyone at Lehman cried, hugged, and comforted one another,” she recalls. “We were installed across the Hudson River in Jersey City and crammed together into small cubicles. Our windows faced the Manhattan shoreline, where we watched smoke rising from the collapsed towers for weeks. It was devastating.”
Then the programmers were moved to midtown Manhattan and seated in the middle of a trading floor. It was chaotic. With 400 traders standing on their feet and yelling into their phones all day, writing a line of coherent software code was almost impossible. “So I went to Staples, bought a sheet of poster board, and set up a barrier between me and the guy opposite me at this long, narrow table. I could still hear him, but at least I couldn’t see him jumping and gesticulating.”
That act of defiance marked the end of her programming career. Fired from Lehman (”that was easy!”)—while there still was a Lehman—she became a technical writer for a software company and continued writing fiction on the side—lots of fiction. Her two books, You Never Know and the forthcoming Random Acts of Kindness, were inspired in part by those shattering events and a passion to capture what life means to us all.
Lilian Duval lives with her husband George, a native of Singapore, in a small house in New Jersey overlooking a large county park. They have two sons and a daughter, all independent and ambitious, and several cats. She’s an amateur classical guitarist and enjoys attending concerts and plays in New York City.
But writing has always been her calling. In her own words, “The most enjoyable activity I can imagine is to invent some characters, make them a little larger than life, set them bickering and thrashing against each other and their fates, and enact a fictional resolution that makes more sense than the chaos and unpredictability of our complicated lives.”
A few years ago I volunteered to go to South Africa to teach in the Black townships. I spent three months and agreed to return the following year to work on a book on the amazing people I met who had struggled through the years of apartheid. During my time there the country was facing an enormous problem…an entire generation was dying of AIDS and tens of thousands of children were being orphaned. Schools and caregivers were necessary. Often the only caregivers were grandparents, some barely able to care for themselves. These aging South Africans were often illiterate, they hadn’t been permitted education under the apartheid government.
I worked with one charity, Ikamva Labantu, that was setting up crèches, pre-schools. They provided the only hot meal of the day the children received. They developed toy ‘kits’ that explained to children, who had played with nothing but detritus from the streets, how to use scissors, how to build with blocks, and, importantly, how to interact with other children.
Ashemahle & Iviwe, foster children with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome
In an effort to give township children something more, several schools established active Chess clubs where eight and nine year old boys and girls learn both the game and the relevant thought processes that the game teaches. One of the more talented students is Bongiwe, a shy, cherubic looking young girl who speaks limited English. Her mother comes from a tribe called Sethwane, her father is Xhosa, and that is their family’s common language.
Their home is small but quite clean and tidy, decorated with faux plants, and wall hangings. Bongiwe’s family has few possessions but it is clear that they are proud of what they possess. She has two older brothers but they were sent to live with their grandmother in the Northwestern part of the Cape. This sort of thing normally occurs when there isn’t enough money in the family to care for everyone.
Chess has taken over Bongiwe’s life and caused some of her school grades to suffer. The threat of having her chess time reduced, however, motivated her to study harder. Her math and English grades began to improve. Bongiwe and her mother go to the small school library and search out chess books. With her mother's limited help they’d read the English-written books of strategies and opening gambits. It also earned Bongiwe a new nickname from her chess-mates, “The Queen of Chess.”
About Carole Eglash-Kosoff:
Carole Eglash-Kosoff lives and writes in Valley Village, California. She graduated from UCLA and spent her career in business and in teaching. In 2006 her husband, mother, and brother died within a month of one another, causing her to reevaluate her life. She volunteered to work with the American Jewish World Service and was sent to South Africa to teach. She returned there a year later, having met an amazing array of men and women who had devoted their lives during the worst years of apartheid to helping the children, the elderly, and the disabled of the townships. These people cared when no one else did and their efforts continue to this day. It is their stories that needed to be told. They are apartheid’s unheralded heroes and The Human Spirit is their story.
Carole has also completed a historic fiction novel, a pre- and post- Civil War interracial love story set in Louisiana, When Stars Align.
In addition to writing Mrs. Eglash-Kosoff has established the …a better way! Scholarship program, which provides money and mentoring for several worthy local high school students for both their first and second year of college.
All profits from the sale of The Human Spirit will be donated to Ikamva Labantu and other South African charities. The book is available at Amazon, Author House and Barnes & Noble on-line sites as a hardback, paperback and as an e-book.
An avid student of history, Carole Eglash-Kosoff is a native of Wisconsin. After graduating from UCLA, she spent her career in the apparel industry and teaching fashion retail, marketing, and sales at the college level. Her first book is . She has also established the …a better way! Scholarship program, which provides money and mentoring for worthy high school students.
Apartheid in South Africa has now been gone more than fifteen years but the heroes of their struggle to achieve a Black majority-run democracy are still being revealed. Some individuals toiled publicly, but most worked tirelessly in the shadows to improve the welfare of the Black and Coloured populations that had been so neglected. Nelson Mandela was still in prison; clean water and sanitation barely existed; AIDS was beginning to orphan an entire generation.
Meanwhile a white, Jewish, middle class woman, joined with Tutu, Millie, Ivy, Zora and other concerned Black women, respectfully called Mamas, to help those most in need, often being beaten and arrested by white security police.
This book tells the story of these women and others who have spent their adult lives making South Africa a better place for those who were the country’s most disadvantaged.
Excerpt:
Thoughts of a mother living in
a Black township during apartheid:
When we awaken each morning with nothing, the smallest most insignificant something can bring a smile. A larger plastic jug in which to carry clean water and make fewer trips to the distant fresh water tap, a little sun to dry the damp floor beneath us, even a warm body to snuggle with at night can help get us through another day. Food is expensive; jobs are scarce and pay provides us barely enough to survive. We are less than nothing to the Whites we meet. Drugs, alcohol, and sex, readily available, provide brief escapes from hopelessness. There has to be something better.
Prologue
A Changing World
The human spirit is that essence of mind and body that allows each of us to exert all of our energies to overcome the worst difficulties of life that we might encounter. One such travail faced by a wide swath of mankind is the denigration of one group of people by another. It is one of the uglier parts of the human personality that has evolved. Children bully those who are smaller or shyer than others. Adults openly abuse those of a different color, a different ethnicity, or those who have a different belief system.
The founders of our country proclaimed that ‘all men are created equal,’ but it was only partially true. In truth, it only pertained to white Christian males. Slaves were counted as 3/5ths of a person and Jews and Asians were excluded as less than desirable.
America fought a bloody Civil War in the mid-nineteenth century to end the practice of men being allowed to own other men as property. But it would take another entire century for our nation to acknowledge the disparity of opportunity between Black and White. A forty-two year old Negro woman, Rosa Parks, refused to give up her seat to a White man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Five years later four Black college students tried to get served at a Woolworth’s lunch counter reserved for Whites in Greensboro, North Carolina. They were refused.
They and others had begun to oppose a system that was morally corrupt. They believed they had an inherent right to be treated fairly…no better, and no worse. Flames spread across the country as many Whites joined Blacks in a peaceful Civil Rights movement that changed the landscape of our country.
Other countries around the globe faced similar injustices and struggled to overthrow their own national yoke of oppression. On the continent of Africa colonies that had been controlled by European countries for hundreds of years sought their independence, occasionally in peaceful transition, more often through bloodshed. Ethiopia fought to free itself from Italy. Angola and Mozambique fought off their Portuguese masters. British-controlled Rhodesia was unwillingly divided into Zimbabwe and Zambia. The Congo gained independence from Belgium, and there were others.
At the southern tip of that continent, however, a prosperous, White dominated government, and an integral member of the British Commonwealth, stood resolute. The Union of South Africa, the continent’s largest and most developed country, would not be intimidated. Wealthy and exploited by White settlers for nearly two centuries, its four million Afrikaans and British descendents would not sanction any form of equality with the fourteen million Xhosa, Zulu, Bantu and Coloureds whose ancestors often dated back millennia. Whites controlled 98% of the nation’s wealth and they were not eager to share it.
In 1948 a newly elected government, controlled by a coalition of ultra right wing parties established a formal policy of ‘apartheid,’ a separation of the races…a complete political and economic subjugation of the country’s majority. During the forty-five years that followed, the White entrenched minority would become more strident…more violent. And the non-white majority would suffer!
Slowly a few individuals began to rise from the ooze of their existence and object to their treatment. They convinced others and a movement began.
But the Union of South Africa did not magically shake off the yoke of oppression imposed by the policies of apartheid. The government did not gracefully cede its White domination over the country’s Black majority because of Nelson Mandela. Nor were its newfound freedoms the singular result of the efforts of Bishop Desmond Tutu or the sudden magnanimity of the country’s elected President, F.W. De Klerk. These were among the many leaders whose wise judgment and desire to have a bloodless transition we all remember.
What allowed the Union of South Africa to become the independent, majority led and democratic Republic of South Africa were the cumulative energies and pressures of its people, those who were imprisoned, those who were killed, and those in the townships and informal settlements who worked without fanfare to improve their lives and the well-being of their children.
These men and women saw the squalor around them …children wandering the dirt streets while their parents looked for food…seniors without heat or a hot meal, the blind, crippled and sick, dying of neglect. And a new scourge, HIV, inflicting large numbers of the population with AIDS, leaving hundreds of thousands of children orphaned by parents dead from the disease.
Old and young, Black and Coloured, economically disadvantaged….these were the most vulnerable!
Caring individuals struggled to organize their communities but their resources were negligible. Government and businesses ignored them but these few weren’t entirely alone. Despite severe prohibitions, a few White liberals connected with these caring persons to bring small measures of justice, fairness, and opportunity to better the lives of those who had so little. Together Black, White, and Coloured men and women worked to set up the basic services that have evolved today as recognized social support networks.
All that can be said at the end of an individual’s life is that he, or she, made a difference and that their family, their community, and those they touched, were better for them having lived and given of themselves.
This, then, is a story of important people; individuals who helped bring equality to the land. People who made a difference …men and women you probably have never heard of.
An absolute pure delight! No one can tell a story where the reader becomes so amazingly immersed within the characters and the story itself like Mary Carter!
I have always had a deep love for Ireland and anything Irish. Perhaps it is because of the blood that courses through my veins or just the simple fact that Ireland appears so quaint and glorious; as well as the fact that the people seem so down-to-earth. Whatever the reason, I was able to indulge within that love through Mary Carter's words and the people that she brought to life within the pages of The Pub Across the Pond!
I simply adored each and every character from the half dozen, to Declan (someone send the poor guy a goat already! lol), to Anchor, to, of course, the wonderful (and incredibly lucky) Carlene and Ronan. Each and every character has an amazing brilliant personality and they each lend spunk, excitement and heart to the story.
The Pub Across the Pond takes place is a wee place called Ballybeorg, in the fabulous Ireland. Mary Carter brings this small and cozy area to life easily with her amazingly vivid descriptions that allow the reader to visualize the setting as they read.
Enormously fun and enjoyable to read, The Pub Across the Pond is the perfect book to settle in with, relax and sweep yourself away within the memorable characters of Carlene and Ronan and their world!
About The Pub Across the Pond:
"Sometimes leaving home is the only way to find where you belong….”
Carlene Rivers is many things. Dutiful, reliable, kind. Lucky? Not so much. At thirty, she’s living a stifling existence in Cleveland, Ohio. Then one day, Carlene buys a raffle ticket. The prize: a pub on the west coast of Ireland. Carlene is stunned when she wins. Everyone else is stunned when she actually goes.
As soon as she arrives in Ballybeog, Carlene is smitten, not just by the town’s beguiling mix of ancient and modern but by the welcome she receives. In this small town near Galway Bay, strife is no stranger, strangers are family, and no one is ever too busy for a cup of tea or a pint. And though her new job presents challenges–from a meddling neighbor to the pub’s colorful regulars–there are compensations galore. Like the freedom to sing, joke, and tell stories and, in doing so, find her own voice. And in her flirtation with Ronan McBride, the pub’s charming, reckless former owner, she just may find the freedom to follow where impulse leads and trust her heart–and her luck–for the very first time.
Excerpt:
Prologue Declan The Greatest Love Story Ever told in Ballybeog
It was the greatest love story ever told in Ballybeog when everyone was drunk, but nobody wanted to go home, and all other great love stories had been told. Name’s Declan, but I’ll answer to most anything as long as yer thirsty and polite, and in that order. Ah, say nothin’ until you hear more. I’ve been a publican at Uncle Jimmy’s going on twenty years now. Most days it’s good ole craic, but sometimes when you’re a publican, you’ve gotta be a bags. I wasn’t sure Carlene Rivers, the Yankee Doodle Dandee who won the pub, had that in her. She had sweet written all over her, and I hate to say it, but girls like that always seem to attract the wrong kind of lads. I’ve seen many a sweet lass get the guy of their dreams, only to watch them turn into their worst nightmares. Over time their men belly up to the bar more than they do the bedroom. Because the Irishmen who “do”, usually don’t hang around here. And Ronan McBride was no exception. Nobody thought the lad would ever settle down. There are three kinds of Irish men. Those who do, those who don’t, and those who say they might but probably won’t. Ronan McBride was the latter. He was thirty-three years of age but still hadn’t worked out his boyish ways. I don’t know why nature makes those marriage-phobic-men so alluring to the women, a course, no one would disagree that he was the best looking man in the family, and I’m not just saying that because he was the only man in the family. His father James McBride (or Uncle Jimmy as he was known around here), had passed, God rest his soul, leaving Ronan, his mother, and six sisters to run the McBride family pub. In heavenly retrospect, I bet James wishes he would’ve just left the pub to the girls; it would have been an insult to his only and eldest son all right, but as I said, sometimes when you’re a publican, you’ve gotta be a bags. As the song goes, Ronan was a rambler and a gambler, although he was never a long way from home. I can’t tell you what it was that made the birds go absolutely mental over him, except he was over six feet and had all his hair. Let’s just say he had his pick of chickens in our little town, not to mention a hen or two who would’ve liked to sink their beaks into him. But it was Carlene who got folks to whispering that maybe, just maybe, our terminal bachelor might mend his wayward ways. There was something in the air whenever those two were in the same room. A bit of a spark you might say, especially when they were arguing. Yep, things certainly hummed when they lit into each other, and for anyone watching it was great craic. Although we worried about Sally Collins, of course, she’d been absolutely lovesick over that boy her entire life. Still, it did me good to see that beautiful Yankee bird come into town and shake up his world, and my money was on her from the beginning. But despite cheering the lass on, I understood Ronan’s terror. For some, there’s nothing more frightening than love, except maybe running out of ale. I was like him meself, one of the Irishman who don’t. And let me tell you, many are the nights when I’ve regretted it. Cold, long, rainy nights when I’m lying in bed and I close my eyes and some skirt that I chased when I was a younger lad comes skipping into my dream, all pretty, and bouncy, and smelling nice, only to start giving me shit for letting her go. Worse than the terrors, those dreams. I’ve known Ronan since he was a squaller, and I didn’t want him to make the same mistakes I did. I used to say, ‘What’s for you, won’t pass you’, but I know it’s a lie. I let them pass me. I always thought there’d be more time. I’m in me seventies now, and it’s probably too late for me. I’m a scrawny looking thing with black wire glasses and I’ve a tuft of silver bird nest sitting on me head, but I’ve been told I still have a right nice smile, (even if they’re not all me original teeth), and believe it when I tell ye I got me share of tiddly-winks back in the day. I’m not much over 5’5 which I read in some touristy-type book is average for an Irishman. The average Irishman, according to this book, is 5’5, drinks four cups of tea a day, has 1.85 kids, and spends three euros a day on alcohol. I don’t know where the writer of these so-called facts was getting his information, but it sure t’wasn’t here, cuz some of our lads spend five euros an hour on the black stuff. That’s a pint of Guinness for you blow-ins. To make a long story short, I’m just your average Joe Soap. I make up for it in other departments if you know what I mean. Ah, but this story isn’t about me or my regrets, so I hope you can put away all lurid thoughts of my national endowments. If you want to take that matter up on a one-to-one basis, and it goes without saying that you have to be a good-looking bird, then you can Facebook me. I didn’t join the fecking thing until the pub went up for raffle in America, but now that I’m on it, I reckon I might as well make the most of it. On that note, if anyone has an extra goat to give away, I’m on that farming game and I can’t seem to get a fecking goat no matter what I do, so send me one, so, if you please. To make a long story short, we were a nice, quiet town until that fecking raffle went viral. That means a lot of people on the internet saw it. The tickets were sold in Irish festivals all over America, and they went for twenty-dollars apiece. Everyone and their mother wanted to win a pub in Ireland. And if Carlene’s mother looks anything like her daughter, I would’ve gone for a mother-daughter combo, but the Young Yank came on her own. And in the wink of an eye, our quiet little town weren’t so quiet n’more. Situated on the West Coast of Ireland, we’re nestled on the edge of Galway Bay. We might be small, but we’re mighty. Close enough to Galway City we only need to follow the scent of heather and lager along the coast to lay our fingers on her thriving pulse, but tucked far enough away that until that fecking raffle, we didn’t get too many blow-ins. We’ll call our little village, Ballybeog, or in Irish, Baile Béag, which means “Little Center”. I picked it because it sounds pleasant and Irish-y and because nobody in their right minds wants me to use its real name. Not out of shame, mind you, but for fear of being over-run by Americans like what happened in Dingle when the dolphin showed up. Nothing can ruin a sweet little village faster than a gaggle of Americans tracking down their “Irish roots” with their iPhones and dodgy laminated diagrams of supposed family trees. Regardless, everyone will be treated as if they’re welcome at the McBride family pub. This is the place to be. Drink away your troubles, catch up with the locals, watch a horse race, listen to traditional Irish music, play a game of pool, or darts, or cards, and see how much better life treats ye after a nice pint. Or two. Or twelve. Nobody keeps count except the Americans. Right now the place is jammers. We’re waiting on a bride. So let me tend to my other customers now, but doncha worry. I’ll check back to see how you’re doing, or freshen your pint. And if you get half a mind to be neighborly, don’t forget to send me a fecking goat.
About Mary Carter:
MARY CARTER is a freelance writer and novelist. The Pub Across the Pondis her fifth novel with Kensington. Her other works include: My Sister’s Voice, Sunnyside Blues, She’ll Take It, andAccidentally Engaged. In addition to her novels she has written two novellas: A Very Maui Christmas in the best selling anthology Holiday Magic, and The Honeymoon House in the best selling anthology Almost Home. She is currently working on a new novel for Kensington.
