ENCHANTING CHRISTMAS WITH AUDREY HEPBURN
The Christmas and New Year period is a great time to read or gift a few heartwarming stories to suit the holidays!
ENCHANTING THE SWAN ends at Christmas, a moving end which I will not give away here. You can read the novel at http://amzn.to/1LPFw5o and at http://bit.ly/1Kw8gys (Barnes & Noble). Consistent 5 star reviews so far: Dan Dwyer comments: If you like old fashioned romance stories, you will like Enchanting The Swan. Paul and Fiona meet at the College of William and Mary in Virginia where they fall in love after playing “The Swan” by Camille Saint-Saens. There’s more to this story than Dewey eye romance. John Schwartz has written a fine romantic thriller than doesn’t let go until the very end.
Neal Cary, professor and cellist at William & Mary, writes: Enchanting the Swan is a beautiful story — full of suspense, drama, and enduring love centered around music. John Schwartz has created a whole world, and a wonderful escape. The characters jump off the page with such personality and imagery that this book could make a great movie. Enchanting the Swan is a very enjoyable read, and I recommend it highly.
MJM Orlean writes: John writes beautifully – I found the book difficult to put down – an easy read, full of intrigue, love, passion, international travel and dubious banking business, and lots more – a must read.
You can still get it for a good read at the fire place: http://amzn.to/1LPFw5o
or at http://bit.ly/1Kw8gys. ENJOY!
SOME WOMEN I HAVE KNOWN is a memoir /coming-of-age story. Our unforgettable Audrey Hepburn was a central personality in our home and especially for me, as we met as children (she 13 and I 7 ) in Holland well before she became a beautiful and revered film star. Of course, our lives became very different and I only touched hers at her outer sphere, but she did remember me! It is one of the more striking stories in SOME WOMEN I HAVE KNOWN.
You can still get it at http://amzn.to/1QIL94B
Readers seem to like it: Sam writes: This is a heartwarming collection of short stories that portray the path of boy meets world with realism and sensitivity. Perhaps most surprising are the different relationships that each story portrays – some were romantic, while others were more familial or close friendships. Those qualities, combined with the historical backdrop and international perspective, distinguish this book from the more typical and predictable storylines, making it a five-star read!
Kendal writes about the Audrey story: I adore Audrey Hepburn and love to hear new stories about her. Can’t get enough. And this short story was a nice little peek into her life, especially pre-fame, as a young girl… loved it.
Micah Harris writes in similar terms: A pleasant account of an exceptional person. There’s always something poignant about beautiful people recovering from ghastly times. Thanks for the read.
Dan writes: I had read the author’s vignette on Audrey Hepburn a few months ago when I was looking for something short, different and personal because my daughter is a big Hepburn fan. Mr. Schwartz did not fail me then nor has he failed me now with his compilation of the women he has met in his life…One charming and not so charming adventure after another, however, ended the same way until he finally met the proverbial woman of his dreams. She luckily for both shared the same dream.
And how did we!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and pleasant holidays!
John and Joy
ALL THESE WOMEN!
Yes, that’s how one writer friend reacted when reading the manuscript of SOME WOMEN I HAVE KNOWN – http://amzn.to/1QIL94B (If the link does not function, which often happens with WordPress.org, simply paste it into your url). My writing friend, was he jealous? Perhaps!
What made me write that book? Clairaudience, clairvoyance, clairsentience in the Library of the Maarten Maartens House in Holland, during a family reunion in 2002. As infidels in the medium-world, my cousin Anne and I did not believe we were in trance with Maarten Maartens, our Great-Uncle Joost Schwartz, who wrote so many novels and short stories in English that made him famous in the USA and the UK at the turn of the 19th/20th century. Under the pen name of Maarten Maartens. But we were! He died in 1915, leaving a wealth of literature behind: 13 published novels and four collections of short stories, plays, poems and even a detective story, the first ever written in Holland.
One short story collection was entitled Some Women I Have Known. Uncle Joost whispered: “Write your own!” And indeed, Anne and I decided to write our own “Some Women”, in memoriam of our Uncle Joe. When the trance dissolved, we looked at each other and laughed. When we told some hundred family members and guests, they laughed too: “Hah! You will never do that! All talk, no doing!”
Unfortunately, Anne passed away before we got underway. The project seemed doomed. But Uncle Joost kept working on me. You have to write your version, he kept telling me. And, I did as he did: I began by writing ten short stories about some of the women I had known and found important enough to commemorate, from my early years on. Then I turned the short stories into a memoir/coming-of-age novel, giving the narrator a fictitious name: John van Dorn, to create some distance from myself.
The novel starts with Audrey Hepburn. She came to play at my grandparents’ residence where I stayed on vacation during 1943, in the middle of World War II. She was 13 and I was 7, and her last name was not “Hepburn” yet, but Ruston, her father’s name. She lived close by us, near Arnhem, with her mother, Aunt Ella, her mother’s sister, her two half-brothers (who were taken prisoner by the Nazis but later found alive). They stayed in the house of her grandfather, Baron van Heemstra, formerly the mayor of Arnhem. We could, of course, not imagine she would become a wonderful film star ten years later. And I did not know I would meet her again much later in life.
Young Audrey at about 13 and a few years later taking ballet lessons in Arnhem, around 1947 (family pictures).
Audrey, when she was 21 modeling in London, in 1950/51, acting in cabarets, not yet “discovered”. A picture given to me by her mother that stood on our grand piano at home.
The novel continues with my funny adventures with two Anns during my early years of puberty, testing the waters with the other sex.
The next chapter is about my grandmother, “Lady D,” who left an indelible impression on me and whose wisdom and personality guided me through life. I like that chapter because people who knew her will recognize her manifold qualities as a wonderful human being who stood out above many.
“Lady D”
The novel continues with my boarding school time when I, as a piano player, got to know a lovely cellist and started making music with her, a story that may surprise those who remember Catholicism in the nineteen-fifties because it took place at a time of strict Jesuit discipline that forbade any contact with the other sex!
My picture with the charming cellist taken by two courageous friends in the lobby of the boarding school. A most risky undertaking!
Then my naughty story about Tisja the Village Beauty, the seductive help in the house who became my “first” when I was serving in the army. Oh boy, the pitfalls of growing up!
I skipped the girls in my student time. One remains a painful memory, too painful to describe. It imploded during a brief but intense and emotional love affair with student pianist Geneviève at a Paris conservatorium.
From that adventure I returned brokenhearted to Holland to take on my first job and, vulnerable as I was, fell into the hands of a smart but destructive beauty. Irene Femme Fatale, I called her.
I am so thankful to the gods for having saved me from her tentacles. Why are males so naïve? Our libido, the male’s most dangerous flaw! Female scorpions kill their mates after the fun. In the case of us male humans, we fall into the trap, kill her before she kills us, or keep paying alimony for the rest of our life and even from our coffin after it’s over. OMG!
I fled Holland to take a job in Geneva, Switzerland. I thought I had found a marvelous girlfriend there. We shared some beautiful and passionate years until it broke on philosophy of life. Then it did not work out in my job either. It was boring, and I wanted a change. I think it was mutual. To sooth my losses, I went skiing but got lost in the woods. I almost froze to death. In half-delirium, I found my way back to my lodge and ran into that magnificent Viking, by pure accident.
Ingrid and I spent some wonderful days together, but again, it was not to be. Out of pure frustration, I took a job in Central Africa and swore to stay out of the female tentacles. In Burundi I met a Tutsi woman refugee, and you really have to read the story to know what happened!
Purified from all my failures, I took a job with the World Bank in Washington D.C., where I finally met the woman who brought me love and peace.
I personally feel that my version of Some Women I Have Known is a good read. We all live different lives but encounter similar moments. Several good 5 star reviews on Amazon.com attest to that.
Read it all in
Kindle or Paperback, and enjoy it with a cappuccino in the morning or a brandy in the evening.
By the way, the cute and stylish cover designs of the short stories are by Melanie Stephens of Willow Manor Publishing in Fredericksburg Virginia (www.willowmanorpublishing.com), who also published the novel.
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PS: Don’t forget my novel Enchanting The Swan we showed last week: also a perfect Christmas gift!http://amzn.to/1LPFw5o
ROMANCING ENCHANTING THE SWAN
THREE THINGS INSPIRED ME WHEN WRITING ENCHANTING THE SWAN: ROMANCE, LOVE FOR MUSIC AND MUSIC IN LOVE. IN SHORT: FOREVER ROMANCE:
http://amzn.to/1LPFw5o
(If the link does not function just cc it into your URL)
Don’t take me wrong: it is not only love that makes the world go round: pigheaded ultraconservative family rules preventing a SHINING love blossoming from the heart and conceived in music, GREED versus compassion, JEALOUS PURSUIT to snatch away someone else’s love, ABUSE IN MARRIAGE, desperate escape and FINAL REDEMTPION in music: it’s all in ENCHANTING THE SWAN, a love story as no other.
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Paul Cramer, MBA graduate and Fiona Baroness de Maconville, cellist, play The Swan, a famous cello-piece by Camille St. Saëns, before their William & Mary Audience. That’s where their love bloomed: at the Department of Music in the Ewell Hall, located at the College of William & Mary, situated in rustic Williamsburg, Virginia.
Neal Cary, Professor and cellist teacher at the College of William & Mary, writes about Enchanting The Swan: “…a beautiful story — full of suspense, drama, and enduring love centered around music. John Schwartz has created a whole world, and a wonderful escape. The characters jump off the page with such personality and imagery that this book could make a great movie. Enchanting the Swan is a very enjoyable read, and I recommend it highly.”
http://amzn.to/1LPFw5o
(If the link does not function just cc it into your URL)
As you see from the back flap, the beginning of their love seems doomed in a bitter family feud of old stiff Belgian nobility with modern times. Fiona, an orphan raised by godparents after her parents died sailing into a storm at the Belgian coast, must break off because her noble godfather wants her to marry into their Belgian circle. At a heartbreaking lunch in a restaurant at the Grand Place in Brussels, The Roi d’Espagne (right on the photograph) she tells Paul she can’t marry him.
Paul joins a financial postgraduate course at the Free University of Brussels for a few weeks in the hope Fiona and her godparents change their mind, but eventually must capitulate, and when offered a promising internship at First Swiss Bank in Geneva he takes it. And off he goes, heartbroken, not knowing this step leads him into lots of trouble. Read the story in http://amzn.to/1LPFw5o
Paul skiing in Swiss Alps
Facing the Mont Blanc from the Dole near Geneva with devilish Diane
After a disastrous career start-up in Geneva, Paul returns to New York where he finds to his consternation Fiona in utter disarray, divorcing after an abusive marriage.
What did Dan Dwyer say of this novel? “…If you like old fashioned romance stories, you will like Enchanting The Swan…She marries into nobility while Paul trudges off to the same continent to work for a Swiss bank where he gets involved with another woman whose lack of scruples gets him in trouble. No sooner does he extricate himself than he finds out that Fiona is unhappy in her marriage. That’s all Paul needs to know. Fate and friends conspire to bring them together, but not so fast. There’s more to this story than Dewey eye romance. John Schwartz has written a fine romantic thriller than doesn’t let go until the very end. “
Will Paul and Fiona ever get together again and play their Swan?
Find out for an intriguing Christmas end and snatch it at http://amzn.to/1LPFw5o
BLACK FRIDAY IN PARIS
I studied in Paris, have friends there, traveled throughout the country and visited the city many times with my wife and kids. France is a dear friend and I speak its language. When I am there I feel as much at home as in Holland or the USA. I am deeply saddened by the loss of beautiful life, the agony of the people who lost their loved ones, the wounded who are suffering in hospitals, and the depression everyone must feel.
What happened today meant Black Friday for Paris. As 9/11 changed the face of America and the western world, so does this additional heinous murder of Parisian innocents by Islamic fascists.
As this is now an author page, I will not enter into the political aspects of Western leadership and forcefulness to suppress this outrageous religious overkill. The absence of American strength to name a spade a spade has been obvious for the last six years. Now the beast has grown exponentially and it will be so much harder to contain and destroy it.
Untamed religious fanatics are a phenomenon of history. It is cultural, political, and power-based. It professes exerting the will of religious leaders over the flock of faithful believers, and suppression of the infidels. In the West we are coming slowly out of it, but we fought many wars over it. The current Middle Eastern turmoil is not new. For more than 1000 years Islamic and Western Religions have been battling for hegemony. Our societies are diametrically opposed: ours is individualistic, propagating personal freedom, theirs is socially inward, emphasizing submission to the prophet and a strictly controlled family behavior. I have witnessed Islam in my travels and experienced its deep features of belief and close nit family life, which are commendable, but got always struck by its reactionary posture. It’s what destroyed the Ottoman empire, the last caliphate. Its initial supremacy in science, medicine and art was overpowered by the Western renaissance, industrial revolution and scientific inventions.
And now the fanatics want it back their way. Several Middle Eastern nations like Egypt and Jordan that have evolved to a more rational outlook are opposed, but Iran sees an opportunity to put oil on the fire. Their Shiite schism with Sunni Islam is an internal battle for hegemony. It plays out in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. What we must avoid is that we become the battleground of their frictions and shared hatred of Western freedom and society. Paris has already become a battle ground. Throngs of Syrian refugees in Germany and other European countries will only fuel the rifts in the future. The USA with its open border policy will be next. Unless it becomes unanimously serious in preventing this from happening. Today and not tomorrow.
It may already be too late. America will have its own Black Friday shortly if we don’t put the silly politics behind us and take action, finally. And American advertisers better stop using Black Friday as a commercial incentive. The pitch has now acquired a bitter connotation with today’s Black Friday in Paris.
ON THE “LUCKY WRITER.”
What would we “writers” do if someone had not invented the pen, electricity, computer, the printing machine, manufacturing paper and ink? Would we write with a feather like our forefathers, on papyrus, maybe an old typewriter, under a kerosene lamp? Writers can’t make anything. They only make things up!
Just imagine if some nuclear bomb destroyed all we have, including the inventors who made things and the people who know how to make them. All of a sudden, everything would stop, none of my books would be sold, read or reviewed and give me glory. And nobody would know how to make things again.
We would have to go back to school and start all over again, in the hope some inventor would see “the light” once more!
Every time I launch my computer, I think of the people who make it possible for me to do what I do. I cannot make anything, not build a house, repair my car, heater, airco, or stove. Forty percent of our electricity comes from coal. Who takes it out of the mines? Not me. And people (” liberals” all) around me even loathe coal. Wait till the lights go out, then they scream, especially those who loathe coal.
Writing consultants (yes, there are a lot of “them consultants” and I wonder if they ever crafted a book) say “write till you can drop your “day job”.” If all those ambitious writers would do that, who would make the things we need? I live near Washington D.C. and see these throngs of government workers crawl every morning over 395 North or creep over I 66 East (I used to be among them. Had to make a living, you know!), and when they finally get there they sit down at their computer and stare. Thanks to the coal miners they get electricity.
Thanks to the gas and oil drillers they get heat or airco. Thanks to the tax payers, including the companies that make things, they get their paycheck. And thanks to all those hardworking “makers” I can spend my day writing without worry that my light goes out or my heater or airco stops (well, they do when some drug-infested driver runs into a light pole or thunder strikes, but who cares? You buy a generator that runs on gas! From the people who invented and know how to make a generator. Can you???). Not so long ago there was an outage in my area due to a huge storm, and the only place where you could find electricity was in a generator-driven Panera or Starbucks. How quickly did all those writers know! Everyone plugged, connected and reconnected, using multiple connectors, happily drinking tea or coffee. Ain’t we writers lucky?
Tea and coffee are planted and harvested. I have seen how that goes. It takes years before a plant gets the leaves or beans ripe for plucking. Then it goes through simple or sophisticated processing machines depending where it is done. Thousands and thousands of people are involved, so that I can have my Lipton or Starbucks.
What if that suddenly stopped tomorrow? How would I get my inspiration, my adrenaline?
Does anyone realize how blessed we writers are? I have been in the middle of countries without electricity where they only have kerosene lamps when dark falls.
How are you going to write? That’s why in such countries people TALK about things; they have fabulous STORYTELLERS, with countless listeners enjoying their stories.
The Audience
Those listeners are their audience. All those smart writing consultants always say “target your audience.” But who and where are they? Those storytellers attract them at the kerosene-lit market place. Since nobody can’t do anything else (except making babies) they come to the storyteller, an entertainer, someone who can inspire through speech. Nowadays we must find our audience through good writing, giving speeches and through the internet (hey! who invented that? You still remember?), assuming everything we don’t know how to make, runs.
So, I am not complaining. To the contrary, I am immensely grateful to all those people who invent, make things, make things happen, and keep things running so that I can write undisturbed. And so should you!