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Cenotaphs
![Cenotaphs by [Rich Marcello]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41dz0iLBh3S.jpg)
Cenotaph by Rich Marcello, is an elegant tale following Benjamin Sanna as he navigates his late stages of life. The book starts when Ben meets Samantha Beckett and immediately they feel a long-lost connection with each other. Soon the plot unravels the loss and suffering both of them have gone through in life and how, somehow, the universe has brought them together.
Cenotaphs is an impassioned piece of psychological fiction with an air of melancholy that permeates the story. This book provides an intriguing exploration of life, loss and recovery. Benjamin’s tale is a stirring character study of a man that is not perfect but, even in his late age, is still discovering himself. Even in his late seventies he tries to live and do good. He accepts his flaws and teaches others the same. All of this is shown with a literary flair that reminds of classic literature that is beautiful yet poignant.
Sam is young, smart and successful in her career but has her fair share of lows that life has thrown at her, yet just a few days together and they know their bond is deep.
Admittedly, I had to pull up the dictionary to look up the meaning of the word, Cenotaph. It is an empty tomb. A tomb where both Ben and Sam celebrate their hardships, loss and love with each other; I think. The story is an emotional-rollercoaster that feels authentic throughout. Author Rich Marcello is able to beautifully describe a love that is romantic yet platonic in a way that feels wistful yet potent. This is not a romance story, this is a story of people leaning on one another and weathering the storm of life together. This is a story that will show you that there are many types of love.
Cenotaphs is an emotionally-resonant story and a unique by relatable reflection on life that I heartily enjoyed reading.
Pages: 196 | ASIN: B097Q3WR2X
The Latecomers
![THE LATECOMERS by [Marcello, Rich]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/416NmqZ6qCL.jpg)
Charlie and Maggie live with a connection so deep and moving that years, hardships, and a wheelhouse of personal issues cannot penetrate it. After years of a unique and solid marriage and the building of a life rooted in creative arts, Charlie makes an announcement that will forever change their lives. Maggie, not one to fall quickly or think slowly, is taken aback and finds herself teetering on the edge of a new horizon yearning for stability and reaching for answers she is afraid she actually may already know. When feelings alone are enough to keep two people tied, anything is possible, right?
The Latecomers, by Rich Marcello, is the gripping account of the intertwined lives of main characters, Charlie and Maggie. The two have a bond that far surpasses that of most couples. I have to say that I am amazed at the dynamic the two share in the outset of the book. From the beginning, readers are able to see the connection and feel it on an almost visceral level. Interestingly enough, I can’t say that I view the relationship as one I would label with the word “love.” Theirs is more a matter of necessity; it is as if their very souls are one and know no separation.
I am sure other readers may disagree, but I see Charlie as weak. The circumstances in which he was raised and the questions surrounding his own birth have made him a man who seeks answers. In that quest, he loses focus quickly and easily and has allowed this to lead him astray in more than one way. As a reader, I feel frustration with him and for Maggie.
Maggie, much stronger and more of a fighter than Charlie, is a force with which to be reckoned. I am in awe of the power that Marcello has given this character. Having given the better part of her life to Charlie, she is left on a limb feeling everything he endures from afar as she tries to sort out why she is physically alone but emotionally tied to him.
Fans of romance with well-developed characters will appreciate The Latecomers. One of Marcello’s most effective techniques is the inclusion of anecdotes and memories throughout the text. Looking back on the years through the character’s eyes is helpful as he develops the plot and brings readers closer to the characters. It is a truly beautifully written reminiscence of their lives together.
Pages: 271 | ASIN: B08427HQXJ
Technology As A Community Builder
Rich Marcello Author Interview
Themes of forgiveness, trust, honor, technology as a healer, and non-violence echo through the pages of The Beauty of the Fall. What was the inspiration for the themes you used throughout the novel?
When I started the novel three years ago, I was interested in writing about, as you say, technology as a healer, or as I like to say, technology as a community builder. There are many good novels out there about the evils of technology, but few, if any, about technology companies that bring about positive social change. The idea of using technology to enable true democracy, as opposed to the slew of representative democracies out in existence today, intrigued me. The events in the world this last year –– the rise of fake news, populism, racism, and sexism—confirmed that I was one the right track. However, as my protagonist, Dan Underlight, emerged, I realized I was actually writing a redemption story. Once I was clear on that point, the themes broadened out to include all the ones you mentioned, especially forgiveness and simplicity.
I felt this story was very well written and used beautifully soulful language to create unique characters living compelling bittersweet lives. What’s your experience as a writer?
Well, first thanks for the compliment. I spend a lot of time at the sentence level, so it’s nice to hear that the language resonates with you. I’ve been writing all of my adult life, but only full-time for the last six years. In college, I had a chance to be mentored by a novelist in residence, but I was broke and needed to make money for a time. So when I graduated, I did. Throughout those years, I kept writing––mostly songs and poetry––but I always knew I would come back to writing novels. Hopefully, I’ll get ten or so of them out into the world before I’m done. I tend to write on most days in the morning for five or six hours. I’m a big believer in writing in the morning and tend to do my best work first thing each day.
The characters in The Beauty of the Fall are complex. What is your process for creating such in-depth characters?
As a writer, I’m trying to go deeper and deeper into the soul of each of my characters, and so I focus a lot of my effort on their inner lives. In this novel, I spent most of my time on Dan and Willow, but I also spent a considerable amount of time on the other characters. On process, I write a character over and over until I feel I find his or her voice. That usually happens at the scene level, and once I understand a character’s voice in that scene, it generalizes to the rest of the book pretty easily. With Dan in particular, once I understood his grief at some deep non-verbal level, he came into focus.
What is the next book that you are working on and when can your fans expect it to be out?
I’m working on my fourth novel, The Latecomers, which is about aging in a world that in many ways devalues age. It’s about how a few folks try to build a community that values age and wisdom. I’m one-hundred-and-forty pages into that novel and hope to have it out in a couple of years.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Dan Underlight, a divorced, workaholic technology executive, suffers lingering grief over the death of his ten-year-old son, Zack. When Dan’s longtime friend and boss fires Dan from RadioRadio, the company that he helped create, he crashes and isolates himself.
Willow, a poet and domestic violence survivor, helps Dan regain his footing. With her support, Dan ventures on a pilgrimage of sorts, visiting Fortune 500 companies to flesh out a software start-up idea. He then recruits three former RadioRadio colleagues and starts Conversationworks, a company he believes will be at the vanguard of social change.
Guided by Dan’s leadership, Conversationworks enjoys some early successes, but its existence is soon threatened on multiple fronts. Will Dan survive the ensuing corporate battles and realize the potential of his company? Or will he be defeated by his enemies and consumed by his grief?
Beauty of the Fall
Fired. Workaholic technology executive, Dan Underlight is fired from his high-paying job at a Fortune 500 tech company by the woman he considered his best friend. Sixteen years of working together reduced to a severance package. He feels angry, betrayed, and heartbroken, but mostly he feels lost. Lost because being unemployed gives him too much time to think about the tragedy of his ten-year-old son’s accidental death, and the guilt he still carries for spending too much time working and not enough time parenting.
Before he’s processed this toxic blend of emotions, Dan embarks on a new relationship with Willow, a victim’s advocate, a poet, a lost soul, and an abuse survivor. Their love is deeper than anything Dan has experienced before, but will it be enough when he accomplishes his dream of opening a new tech company, one that is in direct competition with the one he left? Will Dan allow himself to grow into a kinder, more compassionate human being at the same time as he grows his company into a conscientious innovator, or will the demons from his past collide with his present and destroy him?
From the very first paragraph, Rich Marcello drew me into his book with a command of the language that I liken to a poet’s. Passages like this one, “He put his head down, tried to rekindle the wildfire he helped birth years ago, tried to daydream down a riven path.” and this one, “Don’t look down, the pinpricks have spouted and are covering the new carpet in blood.” provided me with ample proof early on that Marcello was a real deal literary composer, a master of the language, and a wordsmith with soulful depths.
But beautiful language alone can’t make a reader keep reading. Original characters with powerful character arcs and a compelling story to keep all the characters growing is fundamental. No problem there, either. From Dan to his counselor to Willow to his son, stronger characterization is front and center. I know Dan—he reminds me of the author Richard Bach. I know Willow, too, this wild child, compassionate, changer of the world woman who is always strong, always courageous even when her heart is broken. These characters kept me reading.
Then we arrive at the story. Characters and language need movement, need story, setting, pace, tension. Marcello has these covered, too. Set in New England, the vivid colors of the seasons remain clear in my brain long after I finished the book. Authors who take the time to divide their books into parts and give them names always receive a grateful nod from me. I like to know the structure of a story before I begin reading, and I like rolling back to the Table of Contents to remind myself what’s next in this journey. The Beauty of the Fall’s Table of Contents is especially brilliant; titles like “So it Spins,” “Build from the Sky Down,” “Spectacles, and Halos and Code” promised each chapter would carry its own mini-story and all the mini-stories would merge to form a powerful narrative.
Themes of forgiveness, trust, simplicity, honor, technology as healer, and non-violence echo through the pages of The Beauty of the Fall and held me captive until the end. If I had to name a gripe, it would be that the last chapter was unnecessary. The story should have ended with “The Good-bye Return,” but I can understand why, for closure’s sake, Marcello included “In the Coming.”
The Beauty of the Fall will appeal to readers who love a compelling, well-written story with elements of literary fiction, technology fiction, and romantic fiction. Marcello doesn’t write the type of literary fiction that prizes language over story. He writes the type that uses beautifully soulful language to real unique characters living compelling bittersweet lives.
Pages: 283 | ASIN: B01MFCTYYW
Beauty of the Fall
It is impressive, nay amazing, what the human soul can withstand. The Beauty of the Fall by Rich Marcello chronicles one such journey. Our protagonist is Dan Underlight, a man approaching the end of his prime who is getting laid off from the company he helped found. Dan has always been involved with hi-technology and the story opens with his seemingly unjust dismissal from a company he has birthed and nurtured much like a child. As Dan leaves RadioRadio Software after being pushed out by his founding partner, Olivia, we are privy to the sensational emotional and physical journey he undergoes. We learn that a few years ago Dan lost his only child, ten-year-old Zack, and that he dropped into a deep depression. We learn that Dan is divorced and that there is nothing in his life that brings him joy as much as working for RadioRadio had. When we begin our story, we meet a battered man who has nothing left. Then he begins a journey, and takes us with him.
Marcello is a master with language. The story flows in such a natural way it is easy to get sucked into what you’re reading and lose track of time. There are no unnecessary words. In a tragically beautiful tale like this it is easy to drown your story in frivolous language. Marcello keeps the dialogue short and only uses it when absolutely necessary. We journey through this story from Dan’s perspective as it is told in the first person. Marcello weaves effortlessly between Dan’s thoughts and the words he and those he meets say. Poetry peppers the text due to the creative Willow who will become both a source of strength and sorrow for Dan. He is a man who is grieving: grieving the loss of his child and the loss of his reason for existence. We go with Dan through therapy, we journey with him on his pilgrimage and we arrive at his revival as he creates a company even better than the one he had before. It’s not all roses and sunshine for Dan, however, and we also continue with him through his intense sorrow and his drunken attempts at coping. Marcello’s portrayal of the human condition is fantastic and readers will not be disappointed.
The story is broken down into parts and time flows effortlessly. In some novels time skips are awkward and unnecessary. Even the short six month time skips are effortless and useful. When we meet Dan, he is broken and wounded. He rebuilds, even better than before, but suffers two detrimental losses that may have readers concerned about his recovery. After all, he is only human and the soul can only withstand so much pain. Marcello doesn’t disappoint and the resolution of The Beauty of the Fall is realistic and will leave readers feeling confident in Dan’s choices for the rest of his life.
If you’re looking for a masterful tale that will have you laughing, crying and questioning how you view yourself in the universe, you will not be disappointed with Rich Marcello’s wonderful portrayal of the human condition in The Beauty of the Fall.
Pages: 283 | ASIN: B01MFCTYYW
LITERARY TITAN 