Commune of Women Virtual Book Tour July and September 2011

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Join Suzan Still, author of the psychological fiction novel, Commune of Women (Fiction Studio), as she virtually tours the blogosphere July 5 – September 30, 2011 on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!

About Suzan Still

Suzan Still

Suzan Still holds a masters in art and writing and a doctorate in depth psychology. A retired university professor, she also taught creative writing in a men’s prison, where she became increasingly concerned with issues of social disenfranchisement. She lives in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains with her husband and an assortment of rescued fur children.

You can visit Suzan at http://suzanstillcommune.blogspot.com

About Commune of Women

What happens when ordinary citizens, going about their daily plans, suddenly encounter their worst nightmare? That is a question the women of Commune of Women are about to answer.

On an ordinary Los Angeles morning, seven women converge upon LAX for various purposes. Suddenly, in the midst of the crowded terminal, disaster strikes. Each woman spies her only chance at survival and races into the tiny staff room that is to be her home for the next four days. By the first night, they have rudimentary knowledge of one another: Sophia is a powerful, 60-ish woman who is unaccountably adept at the arts of survival; Pearl, an ancient bag lady, part-Black, part-Choctaw, is resourceful and unafraid; Erika , a top executive, has had her business trip cut short by a bullet in the shoulder; Heddi, a Jungian analyst already stressed by marital problems, knows she must use her psychological skills to help the others; Betty, an overweight, histrionic, 50-ish housewife, can’t stand the sight of blood or the thought of how she’s driven her entire family away; and Ondine, a sylph-like, 40ish artist, wealthy, unhappy and neurotic, has inherited a home in France. For four days, united by their common will to survive, the women learn to cooperate and to both entertain and sustain themselves by telling their life stories, which grow darker and more intimate as the days pass.

Meanwhile, Najat, the sole female among her group, the Brothers, has been abandoned by her male companions in a control room with a bank of monitors giving a view of the entire terminal and of televised rescue efforts, where she struggles between her own conscience and the dictates of her group.

Read the Excerpt!

Day Two
Heddi
Well, Heddi’s quite sure she’s never spent a more miserable night in her entire life. She rubs the bruises from yesterday’s pile-up gingerly. Her watch says its 5:14, but you’d never know if that was morning or afternoon, in here. Isn’t there a law against building rooms without windows? Some fire code, or something?
Pretty soon these women are going to be waking up and Heddi dreads it. She wishes they could all just lie here, absolutely still, until the police come for them. Being caged up with all these women and their anxieties today is going to be like running the group therapy session from hell.
Already, she hears someone moving over by the machines. She opens her eyes just a slit, not letting on she’s awake . . .
Oh, it’s the Bruegel.
Look at that old sneak! She tiptoes over to the table. Takes some coins. Tiptoes back to the machines. Looks around. . . Puts in a coin. The noise of it dropping is like a freight train rolling through. Looks around again . . . No one stirring. Drops in another coin . . . and another, until there’s a soft whack, as a cup drops, and then the sound of coffee squirting into it.
The smell fills the room.
Still no movement from the others. Maybe they’re all dead from shock. Surely, they can’t have slept through that old reprobate’s performance.
There she sits on her blanket, leaning against the machine with her pillow behind her, sipping her coffee like the Queen of Sheba.
What’s she doing now?
Rustle, rustle, rustle.
Enough noise to wake the dead–so Heddi guesses the others aren’t, after all.
Oh! . . . I don’t believe this! A pipe?! The woman smokes a pipe?
Sure enough. The Brueghel’s packing her pipe with . . . what? Marijuana? No. Smells like tobacco. Heddi’s a Virginia girl–she’d know the smell of tobacco, anywhere.
She’s striking the match–that sharp smell of sulfur!
Sulfur, coffee, tobacco smoke. Cheap coffee. Cheap tobacco smoke–the lowest grade. But what smells! Elemental smells of Heddi’s childhood. Those, and horse sweat, oiled leather, hay, kerosene from the stable lanterns. She can almost hear Tobias nickering for his morning apple and Amos, in that baritone that could soothe a skittish horse–or a frightened child–saying, “We-e-e-ll, good mornin’ there, Miss Heddi. You up bright an’ early, dis mornin’.”
And little Heddi, barely up to his kneecaps, smiling at his mock surprise, with one hand on her hip: “Amos, you know I come here this time, every morning!”
And Amos, beaming in feigned confusion: “Is dat so, Miss Heddi? Now, how could I a forgot dat?”
Another elemental: her first flirtation. Those early morning exchanges with Amos filled her empty little heart and set high her expectations for all of male-female love: it would be tender, humorous and gallant. It would always cherish and honor her.
Yes, Amos, wherever you are, I am up bright an’ early dis mornin’. And you would never, ever believe this world I’ve awakened to. Thank God you lived out your life among pitchforks and currycombs! You were made of too fine a stuff for the Age of AK-47s.

Here’s what critics are saying about Commune of Women!

“Suzan Still’s experimental novel, Commune of Women, is a remarkable accomplishment. The women of the title are gathered together through sheer accident at Los Angeles International Airport. Strangers to one another, they represent a veritable cross section of humanity—a homeless woman, a psychologist, a former army medic—you get the idea– they couldn’t be more diverse. Still convincingly speaks in all of their voices, as they, like Boccaccio’s captive group in The Decameron, tell stories to pass the time and keep terror at bay.

Their stories unfold, through four day’s time, simultaneously with another story, that of a young woman separated from her group, the Brothers, in another small room, where she observes events on security monitors and television. Her internal monologue discloses her own past, recounts the lives of some of her troubled band, and muses on her role as the only woman in the cell.

The spare setting—two closed rooms—is offset by the fascinating narratives told by the women, narratives that take the reader to an aristocratic home in France, to war-torn Palestine, to a life of poverty and abuse in the American south. Some of the stories are humorous, some tragic, but all are deeply human. In the present, the women respond to the situation, enduring fear and supporting one another in the midst of chaos.

It’s hard to put this book down. The reader simply must know what will happen to these women. Commune of Women is cautionary tale of our troubled times. One can only hope to behave half as well as these women caught up in events beyond their control.

— Dr. Hope Werness, author of The Continuum Encyclopedia of Native Art

Commune of Women Virtual Book Tour Schedule

COMING SOON!

Suzan Still’s COMMUNE OF WOMEN VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR ‘10 will officially begin on July 5 and end on August 26 ’11. Please contact Tracee Gleichner at tgleichner(at)live(dot)com if you are interested in hosting and/or reviewing her book or click here to use the form. Thank you!

If you would like to book your own virtual book tour with us, click here to find out how!

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Aiken Brown, SON OF A SOLDIER

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Miri Leshem-Pelly, SCRIBBLE & AUTHOR

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Bacon Press Books

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