Joseph Sciuto's Blog: A Curious View: A Compilation of Short Stories by Joseph Sciuto

NOVELIST, HISTORIAN (AMERICAN REVOLUTION), GEOPOLITICAL POLITICS, BOOK REVIEWER, AND HUMANiTARAN.

Personally, I don’t care what sexual practices an adult engages in behind closed doors, except when an adult has sex with a child or any teenager seventeen years or younger, has sex with an animal, or has nonconsensual sex.

Ms. Everhart’s novel, “The Education of Dixie Dupree,” takes on the horrific crime of sexual misconduct on a child. This story is powerful, with unforgettable characters, and beautifully written by Ms. Everhart.

For those who don’t think the Epstein Files need to be made public, they should read this book. Not only does such abuse destroy a young child’s life but it destroys families and friendships, and the perverts, at the very least, should be castrated.

Let’s take a step back in time, about four decades ago…I was sitting at a bar in a famous Los Angeles restaurant talking to a businessman from Australia. At first we were talking about the close American/ Australian relationship over the last fifty years. We then switched to literature, and I told him I had just finished reading a novel by Banjo Peterson.

He looked at me as though I was an alien from Mars and finally remarked, “You are the first American in the twenty years I have been visiting this country who has ever mentioned an Australian writer to me, nevertheless Banjo Peterson.”

I replied, “I’ve just been fortunate enough to be around literary people who study authors from around the world.”

Let’s take a step back, 7 years from that moment…At seventeen years old I become fascinated with the theories and works of Sigmund Freud. So obsessed, that after reading all his published works, I start making daily visits to the famous, “New York Public Library,” and start going through files on Freud that very few people have ever seen.

Standing on the platform at the 57th Street train station, waiting for the train to take me back to my home in the Bronx, I see the same gentleman night after night talking to visions and images that only he sees. His eyes express a horror that one would expect to see only in the eyes of veterans who have fought and suffered the consequences of war.

The gentleman is apparently suffering from schizophrenia and I try to explain his illness to myself using Freud’s theories and I cannot come up with any concrete or definitive explanations.

Move ahead two years, once a week I visit a mental facility on Long Island, with a group of other students at Stony Brook University. For four weeks, I sit with the same group of patients, who considering everything, seem perfectly normal to me.

On the fifth week I am taken to a different section of the facility, and the same patients I had visited for four weeks, who in many ways I had bonded with, don’t recognize me. Like the gentleman on the train station, they are talking to images and people that only they see, with their eyes rolling frantically around and their arms moving erratically as though trying to fight off evil spirits.

The sixth week is no different…the seventh week I am told I am not allow to visit with them. I am giving no explanation.

If you are wondering what all my rambling has to do with the novel, “The Consequence of Anna,” it has everything and much more to do with this amazing, mesmerizing, brilliantly written novel.

The novel takes place in the Australian Outback right after the end of World War 1. The Irish servicemen who were serving in Australia at the time the war ends are discharged from the military and have the option to go back to Ireland, England, or to stay in Australia.

James, a rising pianist with the potential to become world famous, is tricked into staying in Australia when Anna, who inherits her family’s sheep station called Sugar Alexandria, tricks him into believing she is pregnant after a drunken one night stand.

James, an Irish Catholic, takes responsibility for his actions and marries Anna and instead of going back to Ireland to pursue his dream of becoming a pianist, takes over Anna’s sheep station business and makes it extremely successful, even as the on coming world depression hits Australia.

Anna, ten years later, finally becomes pregnant and has twin girls as James’ dream of becoming a pianist fades, and he is left to playing his loved music in the bar he frequents with his friends.

With the influx of Europeans moving to Australia, the Aboriginals who have been there for centuries, are pushed aside like the American Indians, and the Mexicans after having to relinquish Texas and California to the American government.

The European businessmen pay the Aboriginals, who now work for them, less than half of what they would have had to pay fellow Europeans. James is one of the only owners who pays the Aboriginals the right amount and he is extremely liked by his employees.

Anna, who spent her youth with her cousin Lottie from England, during the summer months for many years before Lottie moved back to England to get married, is startlingly beautiful but she has a disability and often has to walk with a cane because one of her legs is missing some of its bones.

During their youth they played imaginary games and had secret hiding places. Anna would talk to imagery people and Lottie simply followed along for the fun. After all, it was just harmless games they were playing.

After being away in England for over ten years, Lottie moves back to Australia when her husband dies. Anna is overjoyed that her best friend and cousin is moving back and insists she lives with them and has James turn one of their three windmills into a palace for her cousin.

Her cousin moves in and is surprised to find that Anna is still playing these games from their youth, except that the imaginary people she is talking to are her dead mother and sister and a deadly gray wolf who pretends to be her friend and implores her to do nasty deeds.

Anna, forever wanting to please Lottie, gets her husband involved in a crazy scheme to help Lottie. The consequences are devastating.

I have never read a novel that so brilliantly and powerfully explores the mind of someone suffering from schizophrenia, and who also suffers from paranoia and autism which are usual by-products of a schizophrenia’s mind. Against the background of the Australian Outback and its prejudices and exploration of the Aboriginals and the powerful influence of Catholicism over so much of the population, this novel is a work literature and belongs alongside the works of Toni Morrison, the Bronte sisters, Conrad, and Hemingway.

In closing the two things that Freud got right were: one, that Da Vinci was the greatest left handed genius and two, that one day many mental illnesses would come down to the misfiring of neurons in the brain.

Kristin Hannah is a very talented novelist and exceptionally productive and when I say productive, I mean productive. I have read at least 10 of her 25 novels and I have liked them all. “The Great Alone, The Four Winds, and Women,” I thought were exceptional.

I Liked “Summer Island,” but it was very predictable, and when I can predict the middle and end of a novel after reading the first chapter that is very predictable. Usually, I can only predict the middle and end of a novel after I have previously read the book.

Yet, “Summer Island,” is well written and with great characters, especially Ruby, a struggling comedian who has serious issues with her mother and who uses those issues in her bitter humor.

“Summer Island,” might not be the best of Ms. Hannah’s body of work, but it is still worth reading.

Ms. Napolitano’s novel starts off a little slow, and then picks up like a race car going at 200 miles an hour and never lets up.

It mostly takes place in the small Georgia town of Milledgeville and very seldom will you get such a complete picture of any town, regardless of size, as you do in this novel.

Ms. Napolitano is a character driven storyteller and she has more characters in this novel than most authors have in three novels and each character is amazingly well defined and alive. Like a Da Vinci painting, even the dead lying in a coffin, seem to be in motion and without speaking a word tell us a story.

Even though it takes place in a small town, the author is able to give us a worldview of humanity…flawed, redeeming, and forgiven.

It took Ms. Napolitano six years to write this amazing piece of literature, and any aspiring, keen, perceptive writer or reader can understand why.

Outside of the American Revolutionary Era, the era of history I have studied the most is World War 2 (before the war, during the war, and its lasting effects up to this present moment).

A lot of what I have learned has come from the amazing collection of books on World War 2 written by the amazing historian Lynne Olson. Her latest book, “The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück,” is as brilliant and educational as any of her books.

The one thing I have learned after reading numerous books on this war is that just when you think you know just about everything about the Nazis’ atrocities you learn something new and just as horrifying.

The second thing I have learned is the importance women played in the war, especially in the resistance networks across Europe but especially in France and Poland and how little credit they initially received for their work and sacrifice that cost them tens of thousands of their lives and life long injuries and nightmares.

Ravensbrück was an all female concentration camp inside Germany made up primarily of French women fighting with the resistance in their country, and Polish women fighting for the resistance networks in Poland.

Many of the Polish women, who were called rabbits, were used in medical experiments which the SS performed on them simply to satisfy Hitler and show they were doing important work. The experiments had absolutely no scientific value and the ones that survived, just over 50, lived the rest of their lives after they were eventually freed in constant in constant pain.

Ms. Olson’s description of these experiments are so horrific that they could literally make the reader sick.

Thousands of women in the camp perished in the one gas chamber on the grounds of the camp. At one point the one and original gas chamber was so overused, that they had to build a second one to accommodate their horrifying actions.

The quiet heroics of many of the women inside the camp saved many of the female prisoners their lives, but it was after they were released and the way they banded together to help and support each other, and to let the world know what went on inside this camp that is truly heartwarming and inspirational.

This is truly a great book that needs to be read by people in all age groups. As is noted and referenced, the first country Hitler conquered was Germany.

“So Much Blue,” is so amazingly wonderful. After reading, “James,” by Mr. Everett, I had to read another novel by this author. “James,” was quite possibly the best novel I had ever read on slavery. “So Much Blue,” is quite possibly one of the best novels I have read about the life of an artist.

Kevin Pace, a very successful painter, is the main character in this novel. He is also the narrator, and it is through the telling of his story that we get a complete picture of the painter’s life and his secrets that make up the story of his life.

The structure of the book is in three parts, switching back and forth throughout, from his adventures in El Salvador in 1979, to his affair with a young and beautiful Parisian girl, to the present and his life with his wife and two children.

The characters that surround Kevin are also quite interesting, especially his friend Richard, his wife Linda and their two children, and an unforgettable character in Bummer, a war criminal.

Like “James,” I strongly recommend this book, especially if you are an artist.

Have you ever wondered why Putin of Russia or Xi Jinping of China have taken such a key interest in the continent of Africa?

Surely it couldn’t be to upstage President George W. Bush’s administration that saved the lives of millions of Africans with help from Condelizza Rice, General Powell, and Dr. Fauci by spreading the dangers of HIV and providing treatment to those already infected.

After all, Putin and Xi Jinping have no problem killing hundredths of thousands of innocent Chinese and Russians. The answer is two fold: One, because of all the minerals and gold mines in many of the countries and Two, because many of the countries are now controlled by dictators who enjoy the benefits of being rich, and who vote with the the Russians and Chinese on all measures put before the U.N. and other organizations that actually want to help the people.

Have you ever wondered why Donald Trump seems to always side with Putin? Could it be because Trump is sexually attractive to the stud? Or could it be because Russians own five condos in Trump Tower and because Mr. Trump has taken out so many suspicious loans that lead right back to Russian obligees.

These are just a couple of the questions answered by Ms. Applebaum in her new book “Autocracy, Inc.” Ms. Applebaum is one of the most respected, award winning historical biography’s and political analyst in the world. For all those who doubt the accuracy of her reporting, please take a chance and read her book. It is one of the most important books that I have read about the world we live in at this moment and I highly, highly, recommend it.

Ms. Napolitano’s, “Dear Edward,” is a 360 degree turn from the two previous wonderful books I have read from this amazingly, talented, and gifted writer. “Hello Beautiful,” is about an Italian American family from Ohio and “Within Arm’s Reach,” is about an Irish American family from New Jersey.

“Dear Edward,” is about the sole survivor of a commercial airliner going from New York to L.A. that crashes In Colorado and in which 191 passengers and crew are killed.

Eddie, the sole survivor, has his name changed to Edward by his aunt and uncle who take him in once he is released from the hospital. The name change is the result of all the publicity the young 13 year old boy is receiving from the public, newspapers, T.V. shows, etc.

Edward’s mother and father and older brother, Jordan, who he is exceptionally close to all die in the plane crash. If the two previous books I mentioned had a lot of amazing characters, “Dear Edward,” has triple the amount and how the author is able to give every character unique characteristics and make them unforgettable is an absolute work of magic.

The book switches back and forth from the time the plane is in the air and the passengers have no idea what is going to eventually happen to them to the present time and the intense struggles and trauma that Edward is going through and how it affects his aunt and uncle and how a young and energetic young girl, Shay, who is also thirteen befriends Edward and in every way becomes his lifeline.

The book is at times very difficult to read because of the subject matter and how we get to know so many of the characters on the plane who we know are doomed to die, and how the families of the the deceased have to deal with such an unexpected tragedy.

Like the previously two books of her I mentioned, I also highly, highly recommend “Dear Edward.” The author is a character driven writer and the way all her characters come to life, from the smallest to most significant, is simply the work of a master and how they drive the plot and storyline is a work of art.

I originally became a fan of Ms. Shalahina’s writing after reading many of her posts on Instagram and Threads about the Ukrainian War.

I became a bigger fan after reading her novel, “Ukrainian Diary,” which I found to be alarmingly honest and compassionate.

Honesty is one of the key elements that separates good writing from poor writing and Ms. Shalahina certainly does not lack anything when it comes to honesty in her writing. Hemingway would be very proud of this young lady.

In her latest novel, “Alive: Personal Story about My Life in Donbas,” the author reveals her love of reading. To quote the Nobel Laureate, Professor Louis Simpson for the thousandth time when asked, what does a writer do? “A writer reads.”

Reading and honesty will at the very least make you a good writer, and in the case of Ms. Shalahina when you add her ingenuity, perception, and empathy she becomes an exceptionally talented writer.

Over the last decade, I have read numerous biographies and novels about Ukraine. Notably by Anne Applebaum, “Red Famine,” and Tara Masih’s, “My Real Name is Hanna.” Most have dealt with Stalin’s genocide, World War 2, and a few about the current war being carried out by another immoral, insane, and brutal dictator Putin.

But no biography or novel I have read has managed to get down to the truly personal, every day existence that one has lived through in the Donbas region of Ukraine, during the last 30 years, like Ms. Shalahina’s novel, “Alive, Personal Story of my Life in Donbas.”

Ms. Shalahina’s novel is ground zero. The only comparison I can make as an American, is the coal mining regions in West Virginia and other parts of the south. Yet, they do not even come close when it comes to standards of living and compensation.

Donbas could easily be a circle in Dante’s “Inferno.” It is a mining city where the sun seldom shines because of all the population in the air, where father’s leave their family never to be heard from again, where death is a constant worry everyday a worker goes into the mines, where drunkenness and abuse, are simply part of life, and now with the war going on destruction is everywhere.

Ms. Shalahina takes us through this Inferno, from when she was just a little girl to the present. She is Virgil leading Dante through the Inferno, and sadly enough she is also an innocent victim. Hopefully, at the end of this war she finds herself in Paradiso on earth.

A truly remarkable work. One that will live with me for a very long time. I highly, highly recommend it.