Hello Therians!
Bootlicker by Steve Piacente is in the spotlight today :)
SYNOPSIS
In the summer of 1959, two black teens hoping to sneak a beer in the South
Carolina woods stumble on a Klan lynching led by the local judge. One bolts. The
other freezes and winds up with a choice: join the man about to die, or begin
hustling black support the judge needs to advance in politics. In trade, he will
enjoy a life of power and comfort. Decades later, Big Ike is about to become the
state's first black congressman since Reconstruction. Instead, he finds himself
in the same forest, a long rope in his fist, muttering the hated nickname again
and again: Bootlicker.
Get your copy!
About the Author
It all started in 1954.
Eisenhower was president, no one beat the Yankees, and Elvis was still an
unknown. TV was three channels and two colors, black and white. Growing up, I
didn’t particularly like school. I liked baseball, egg rolls and comic books, and
it was Superman that got me interested in reading and writing.
Raised in New York and educated in Washington, I kept moving south after
college, eventually learning all they left out at journalism school at the foot
of street-smart newspaper editors in Florida and South Carolina.
In 1985, one of those editors found me presentable enough to send back to
D.C., this time as correspondent for the Tampa Tribune. The job ended four
years later, and I found myself in steep competition for a similar slot with the
Charleston, S.C. paper. I remember pumping the Charleston editor’s hand and
pleading, “Please don’t let me become a press secretary.”
The man was merciful, enabling nine more years of Washington reporting, and
front row exposure to the real South, as Charleston is far deeper into Dixie
than Tampa, geography be damned. As time wore on, my NY sensibilities blended
with Southern convention to produce stories on intriguing topics such as public
celebration of the Confederate flag, and segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond.
It was a great time until Charleston ran out of cash and shuttered its
one-man D.C. bureau. Out in the cold, I – by this time a father of three
ravenous, athletic, college-bound children – found warmth in a little known
Federal agency. I began as a speechwriter and today head the web, new media,
and graphics teams.
Though Bella is my first real fiction, some thin-skinned politicians would
say the stories I wrote about them were just as fabricated. In fact, no fiction
bubbled up until I earned my license to write in the Johns Hopkins Masters
program in 2000. During this time, I also reentered the classroom at American
University, my alma mater, and began teaching journalism classes.
My insistence on clean, tight writing did no lasting harm to the three
afore-mentioned children, now taxpaying adults in the fields of public
relations, web design, and engineering. It wasn’t until years later that I
learned that the kids snuck secret help from their mom, Felicia Piacente, a
special education administrator in the Montgomery County (Md.) Public School
System.
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Now before you go, don't forget that you can
win a copy of Bootlicker in my
win a copy of Bootlicker in my
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