THE DO-NOTHING BOYS
FIRST REVIEW FOR THE DO-NOTHING BOYS
the ferocity of Nesca's writing is indomitable and covers weaknesses with something that approaches indisputable glory. He is a poet writing prose and dealing with material that is so close to him that he often struggles to manage it objectively. It is raw honesty from one of life's damaged angels and worth your attention...
The Do-Nothing Boys
by Tony Nesca
Reviewed by Bob Williams for The Compulsive Reader
AND ANOTHER:
...The poetic sensibility is almost pure in this as in many other passages and the ruthless disregard of niceties (like individual sentences) lends a rhythm and flexibility achievable in no other way. ...
AND HERE'S THE EXCERPT HE INCLUDED AS AN EXAMPLE:
..."So at around 11 or 12 bottles done acid trip coming down hard and sad we said goodbye on a school night and I watched my cousin walk out the door and I thought the world of him and us and everything that had contributed to this bizarre turn of events, two Italian boys born in Torino, Italy somehow ending up across the world in Canada dropping acid and wandering the streets of Fort Garry what a surreal experience, what an orgy-fest ordeal it all turned out to be, and the melancholy moment got me thinking about my mother and brother back in Italy and my broken family and my misguided adventures I sat there feeling the darkness and the aloneness and the ultimate undeniable truth, moonlight laughter is sad and lonely...." BY TONY NESCA ISBN: 978-1-4357-0031-4
P>THE DO-NOTHING BOYS
full review here:
http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1807
About the Reviewer: Bob Williams is retired and lives in a small town with his wife, dogs and a cat. He has been collecting books all his life, and has done freelance writing, mostly on classical music. His principal interests are James Joyce, Jane Austen and Homer. His writings, two books and a number of short articles on Joyce, can be accessed at: http://www.grand-teton.com/service/Persons_Places
The Do-Nothing Boys is a raucous tale of teenage rebellion recounting the exploits of a teenager named Ziggy, recently returned to Canada after a three year hiatus in his native country of Italy, and the group of friends that spontaneously gather around him. A result of parental divorce, he turns to sex, drugs and rock and roll and in the process discovers deep friendship, love, loss, disintegration, and the beautiful, sad and wondrous experience of living. Written in an incendiary white-light/white-heat stream of consciousness, the words cascade down the page in a free-flow waterfall of ideas and happenings, hallucinatory at moments with surreal jaunts of what Nesca himself calls “word music”, but never straying far from the downright gritty and street-tough prose, laced throughout with a constant sexual/erotic underpinning.
TWO SHORT BURSTS FROM THE DO-NOTHING BOYS -
BURST ONE -
And we continued in that fashion under the barren trees rust-colored grass, couple of kids race by us, a dog barks in the distance, a mother screams out her son's name, '67 Firebird burns rubber right beside us bolts off in a cloud of smoke, three stoned chicks across the street laughing and singing looking lovely in their tight jeans and striped Adidas runners, Nazzie's wiry eyes looking at me with laughter and sadness at the same time talking all kinds of shit waving his hands driven by the manic early morning beer-buzz bounce in his step worn out fedora pulled tightly around his head, myself all sinew and energy and smoking-gun-happy, chicken joint at the end of my block bursting at the edges argument in the parking lot, Vincent Massey High across the street group of punk rockers on the front steps popping pills hurling insults at the sky, Bob Marley song pops into my head "No Woman, No Cry" as we linger on and on and on cross at the walkway start crawling along Pembina past the small apartment buildings, fast food joints, small parks, angry teenagers and the other kind, car horn rips into our reality there's Ross crazy bastard behind the wheel of the Great White pulls up right beside us halting traffic large smile on his panic-stricken face,
"GET IN MOTHERFUCKERS!"
We jumped in the back and the shark took off followed by the complaining car horns and curses and Ross opened the small window in the cab...
"This is an artless society we live in!" He shouted
BURST TWO -
But it was a mellow night at back-alley-park that I was thinking about…Ross and Joe talking in one corner about music and guitar players, Nazzie, Cindy, Brenda and Max sat on the grass in a semi-circle laughing about something, Brenda jumping up and down…me and Judy huddled against the fence on the other side of the park soft kisses in the sun-go-down beauty, my hand on her fat thighs plump and long and fleshy, we're smiling in each other's arms saying nothing just swaying in the summer breeze golden moments at dusk like these never forgotten thinking I could do that forever, thinking that life would never change and that change can go fuck itself, unwilling to accept the unavoidable ending of all things, the constant state of flux called life, the inevitable change that all things have to go through in order to achieve individuation, no, no way anyhow, not ever, I ran my fingers through the grass the leaves cool to my touch, Judy laid her head on my chest and closed her eyes, a siren echoed in the moonlight then faded, a sudden stillness came into the night where everything went quiet, or seemed to, I could feel Judy breathing on my chest and her heart beating slowly against me, happy moments at back-alley-park as the dusk settled in and we leaned forward and breathed in the moment…
THE DO-NOTHING BOYS
PUBLISHED BY SCREAMIN' SKULL PRESS
COPYRIGHT 2007 TONY NESCA
ALSO AVAILABLE AT:
www.myspace.com/tnesca
WWW.LULU.COM/NESCA
VIA SPECIAL ORDER AT BOOKSTORES AND LIBRARIES AROUND THE WORLD-
HERE'S THE INFO YOU NEED:
THE DO-NOTHING BOYS
BY TONY NESCA
ISBN NUMBER: 978-1-4357-0031-4
AND DIRECTLY FROM THE PUBLISHER:
SCREAMIN' SKULL PRESS
stalekisses@hotmail.com
ALSO AVAILABLE AT A GREAT NEW SITE FOR INDIE WRITERS: http://www.indiebookshelf.com/indiecontent/tonynesca.html
La Gioconda is a novella from underground writer Tony Nesca, a boozy, rock and roll love story about a Canadian college student who meets a beautiful young exchange student from France, and their unexpected immediate connection as they're surrounded by a whirlwind of marijuana sex-jaunts and live-band, late-night drunk loving. Both sad and beautiful, desperate and raunchy, and jam-packed with humour, La Gioconda is written in Nesca's unique free-flow-lyric, with words, ideas and sentences that go on for pages, alive and beautiful and unfettered by conventional modes of writings...
Brand new review of "La Gioconda" by Tony Nesca
Reviewed by Matthew Firth for the Canadian Lit-Mag Front & Centre
I don't often compare one book to another in a review, preferring to assess books on their own. But there's a link here I can't resist. The publisher of "Six ways to Sunday" uses word and phrases such as "brashly…gritty settings…shining bright and battered in the dingy recesses of the bar…" After reading Tony Nesca's excellent novella, "La Gioconda", I'm tempted to go back and rewrite my review of McPherson's book because it is none of the things it claims to be when held up next to Nesca's true example of down and out, gritty, yet sincere Canadian literature. McPherson's book plays at being tough and stylistic, Nesca's book is the real deal.
"La Gioconda" takes readers to Winnipeg, a city known for its dark side. In the novella Tony is a twenty-seven year old bohemian semi-student trying to be a writer. He hangs out in dingy bars, not because he's looking for material, but because he's a regular working class joe in Winnipeg and that's what there is for him to do. Here's the authenticity, the sincerity that McPherson cannot duplicate in his faux urban settings.
Tony, through an old University friend, falls hard for and hooks up with Jasmina, a visiting French teenager. The two strike up a quickie romance and live for the moment, drawn together to Winnipeg's thriving underground music and literary scene and its – on the surface – seemingly strange crossover with the aforementioned dingy bars. Jasmina savors Winnipeg's authenticity as well and thinks about leaving France for good. But instead the pair live fast and hard (their sexual relationship becomes increasingly kinky) and leave it at that. This is a story of experience. It is about what happens when two people come together and get it on. There is no contrived moralizing, no redemption or glory. Tony and Jasmina drink and fuck and carry on and that's all it takes to make a great story. When it's over and done with, Tony is where he started. The memories of his experience are enough and they make him smile. He goes back to Winnipeg's crappy bars pleased that he let life and love in.
Nesca writes in a rollicking, free-flowing style. The sentences are often long and rambling but uncluttered. It goes well with the vibe of "La Gioconda", of freedom and living in the moment and grabbing what life presents you with. Nesca has written a short, sharp gem of a book that truly represents the gritty and the urban.
Matthew Firth is the editor of Front & Centre magazine and of Black Bile Press –
Front & Centre
573 Gainsborough Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario
K2A 2Y6
Canada
www.ardentdreams.com/bbp
"The flow is stream of consciousness reminiscent of Kerouac or Ferlinghetti (they of the beat generation) or of Patti Smith, resembling speed rap here and there throughout...It is immediate. Loss and longing recur as themes throughout. Everything is tinged with realistic sadness. This is not the rarefied or removed world of some elite rock star but a life we have all experienced at least at some point in our youth, whether we remember it correctly or not...."
- BRIAN FERGUSON - WINNIPEG GENIUS -
$16.00 softcover - $30.00 hardcover
Excerpt from La Gioconda:
Tom-Tom Club in the Osborne Village freaky part of town sort of tiny Greenwich Village we was sitting around in this wild place everyone dressed in black white faces black lipstick army boots downing rye and 7 shots of sambuca man Frenchie beside me loud alternative band cranking out the rock-punk,
“So what’s your name?” I said
“WHAT? CAN’T HEAR YOU, MUSIC’S TOO LOUD”
“WHAT’S YOUR NAME?”
“JASMINA…LET’S DANCE”
Dragged me to dance floor slam dancing into the bodies rubbing against us fierce eyes saying something, Karla started whole thing insane stage diving into sea of drunken corpses hands on her tits and ass rolling right by my head me reaching out trying to cop a feel, got tired of that shit moved back to table convinced dancing is for morons, Jasmina downed her drink raised empty glass at me, I ordered another for her and me we hit glasses the hell with it, Trent having a ball John Lennon glasses long curly hair thinning up top he was laughing drinking drinking to the end of the long silent night cuz it don’t mean shit anyway, he waved me over to dark corner,
“LISTEN MAN, I…UH…YOU KNOW, WHAT YOU AND YOUR FAMILY JUST WENT THROUGH…I MEAN…I DON’T WANT YOU TO THINK I ABANDONED YOU, YOU KNOW?...THESE KINDS OF THINGS ARE TRICKY…”
“DON’T MENTION IT MAN” placed a hand on his shoulder “YOU’RE A GOOD FRIEND”
“WHAT?”
“YOU’RE…NO PROBLEM, LET’S GO”
“SAY AGAIN…”
I made a motion back to our table shaking his hand he was digging it, we were caught in the moment a little loving baby shake it all around up and over reality train impossible, Jasmina and Karla on dance floor alone gyrating hips legs gone wiry man, breasts juggling strobe lights on scanning the crowd of Osborne Village freaks got goth couple in corner pretending to be somber, bartender large fellow big black beard grinning bastard, group of punkers on second level hung out chugging beer with DOA stickers on their jackets, young girl with pierced nose lip eyebrows at table beside us swaying to the music, bartender starts moving like caged animal stroking his beard dark and lonely, Jasmina’s ass high up in the air Karla looking small and nasty and sexual animal man, they slow moving gyro, they liquid-metal up and down easy street, they groovin’ punk rock violence, tall lanky fellow eyeing Jasmina’s brazilian ass as it tilted one way then the other, he hypnotized man, he lost in sex-hungry maybees, all of us lost permanently in life gone haywire, purple haze gone John and Ringo dead and buried George hanging with Jimi even Sid Vicious sad and beautiful leather jacket creaking in the wind old man drowning in filthy pool out back at the end of the universe, me thinking Johnny was, yeah, Johnny was something unlike anything, got couple of goth girls on dance floor one tall and blond long tattered dress purple shirt, other pitch black from head to toe torn fishnets, they standing there drinks in hand slightly, ever so slightly moving to the music be-bop, a distant hazy reality started thinking about the tall one’s thighs picturing them in all possible positions, all possible sixes and shapes, pictured them wrapped tightly around my head face turning purple ecstatic frenzy man, tall guy talking Jasmina up on dance floor I see her pointing at me I give the guy the peace sign, Trent laughing in background drinking madly, no fear, no tomorrow, no god, nothing happening but right here right now, short bald guy soliciting me with drugs strobe lights pumping it up almost violent all okay by the whorehouse on the corner lit up like a fireball, I inhaled marijuana right there and then in the days when you could do that, days gone in the tornado confusion butt-ugly politician making everything ugly freedom out the window la la la, well well, I suppose a beautiful sad sight all around world rotating just out of synch Trent and I looking at each other smiling till the blues walked through the door and circled the room and I started thinking too much about useless things better forgotten tragedy coming to forefront I shook Trent’s hand downed my drink walking out the door outside nice and cool crisp air in my lungs, sidewalk full of fringe-living midnight-people with their own problems and tragedies no one gets out alive man, no way...
www.myspace.com/tnesca
LA GIOCONDA
PUBLISHED BY SCREAMIN' SKULL PRESS
COPYRIGHT 2006 TONY NESCA
ALSO AVAILABLE AT:
www.myspace.com/tnesca
WWW.LULU.COM/NESCA
AND DIRECTLY FROM THE PUBLISHER:
SCREAMIN' SKULL PRESS
stalekisses@hotmail.com
AT A GREAT NEW SITE FOR INDIE WRITERS: http://www.indiebookshelf.com/indiecontent/tonynesca.html
MORE FROM SCREAMIN' SKULL PRESS:
- CHECK OUT CONTEMPORARY POET NICOLE I NESCA -
HER SECOND BOOK OF POETRY IS NOW AVAILABLE
"KINK" -
ISBN 978-1-4357-2025-1
AVAILABLE BY SPECIAL ORDER AT LIBRARIES AND BOOKSTORES ACROSS THE WORLD -
ALSO AVAILABLE AT:
WWW.NINISABELLA.BLOGSPOT.COM
WWW.MYSPACE.COM/NICOLEMISABELLA
OR DIRECTLY FROM THE PUBLISHER:
SCREAMIN' SKULL PRESS
stalekisses@hotmail.com
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