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Brad Lynberry, a successful photographer is haunted by the memory of Jen-Zen. He finds himself first fascinated then obsessed with shoes – but only lost shoes! Is Brad driven by artistic inspiration or is he going off the deep end like his sister fears? The answer comes through encounters with his Grandma who loves birds …a shaman named Red Hawk who tells him to look in the shadows, and Jonathan the art collector who leads him to Swansea where lost shoes keep popping up in a display of whimsy. Time is running out. Brad must unravel Jen-Zen’s poetic riddles or go mad trying. Customer Ratings:
OVERALL ENJOYMENT Not rated
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Based on 0 reviews Editorial Reviews:
From Great New Books
Building on the popularity of such shows as Sex and The City, shoe fanatics now have another great book to read!
From Michael Steven Gregory, Filmmaker
Haunting and hypnotic, Shapiro's debut novel will long linger in the reader's mind. JEN-ZEN illuminates the beauty to be found in the dark vacuum of unfathomable personal loss, and inspires.
From Scott Barnes, Editor NewMyths.com
This is a singular book, original in voice, thoughtful in tone. The shoes seem to be telling Brad something. Jen-Zen has had an accident and is trying to communicate from somewhere beyond. Can Brad use his photographer’s art to rescue his true love?
From S.M. Murdock, Bewildering Stories Editorial Review
“Feeling the blues of sadness, the reds of rage, and all the shades in between…” Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries is vivid with imagery. Julie Ann Shapiro colorfully depicts the realities and wondrousness of relationships through the ethereal sensitivity of Jen-Zen and the longing heart of Brad Lynberry.
Excerpt:
Chapter One
“Look into the window.”
Grains of sand skipped across the floor. The floorboards creaked, the lights flickered. The house shook. Forces brewed in the morning.
Bookshelves, dishes, and pots and pans rattled, like a drummer gone mad. Dogs barked and car alarms blasted in a symphonic roar. The rattling slowed down to a soft drill and Brad Lynberry looked outside. Broken bits of a red tile roof littered the street.
Brad opened the garage door, grabbed a broom, dust pan, and trash can and got to work cleaning up the mess. As he swept up the broken tile, he listened to the neighbors talk amongst themselves. “It’s nice to see him outside again helping out.”
Another one added, “You know the photography work he did for my kid’s ballet recital is just breathtaking. We should have him over to barbecue. Hey, isn’t your sister-in-law single?”
Brad did not have time for the explanations. No, that’s not true. Time came in downpours, too much of it washing all around him. The salted sea, he could make whole buckets, if he didn’t stop himself.
After emptying the last bits of broken tile into the trash bin in the garage, Brad grabbed his digital camera, a Canon Power Shot Pro1, locked up the house and headed for the beach.
Walking down the steps to the sand he touched a Band-Aid on his knee, forgetting where he stumbled. Inspiration made him the clumsiest runner, but his clients thanked him, the ones who needed beach photos never went neglected just his knees and calves. Somehow he always managed to put on a Band-Aid and antiseptic ointment, but never got around to applying vitamin E to ease the scaring.
Music blared, Beethoven’s 5th symphony, the cell phone ringer. Staring at the phone, Brad wished he turned the ringer off, but that meant living in the memories and saying hello to Jen-Zen.
Getting dumped would have been easier. No one prepared him for the other. Whoever thought about those things in their late twenties?
Not a freaking soul!
The mobile phone rang and rang. Brad remembered how Jen-Zen labeled the cell phone a collar, one she vowed never to wear. She didn’t see how he would need the diversion. No one did, except maybe his Grandma when she saw the photographs of the shoes.
Picking up the phone, he listened to an ad guy at Surf Clean give him a work order for the new campaign, “Photograph beach art, no wave shots and make it edgy.”
Interpretational assignments like Surf Clean's became a specialty of his over the years. The riddle of inspiration in all its unplanned glory waited for his camera lens; not feeling like work at all.
The answer for Surf Clean came with the foulest smell; the sight of six rotting sting rays in the wet sand fit their ad requirement. As Brad photographed the stingrays, he felt sad noticing the missing chunks of flesh; bright red, white, and pink revealed their insides and so much more.
He realized it didn’t end in the sand; the stingrays became lunch for the seagulls not dying in vain. Besides, how did he know that their life was not complete when they took that last ride on the waves. Maybe they did it together, never knowing what hit them, and they died smiling.
He told that to Surf Clean, figuring it would give them something extra to run with for the campaign.
The ad guy, so typical of the business spun it around within seconds and said, “The tagline is ‘Can a sting ray smile?’ It’s brilliant.”
Since when is death brilliant?
This thought Brad didn’t express to the client. Instead, he tried to focus on other clients needs, recalling how some nail polish firm wanted sea shells photographed. He assumed he’d end up taking pictures of a clump of mussel shells at low tide, perhaps with the luminescent insides captured in the sunlight, not counting on finding a bunch of fingernail sized shells the color of skin: brown, tan, and white with pink bellies.
The last of the “beach art” Brad almost walked right past, until the unmistakable bend of a woman’s legs in the spooning position commanded attention. He sat down beside the woman’s body carved in sand. Her hips curved sideways. With her hands covering her eyes, she looked like she was sleeping.
When he slept he covered his eyes too, but he always woke up. SHE stayed in the sand.
Before the tears came, Brad ran back home, hoping the neighbors needed assistance rounding up the cats. During the last earthquake several cats got scared and wound up climbing the Eucalyptus trees.
On his street, he listened to the neighbors milling around, surveying the damage, assuring one another that nothing severe happened. “Just a little rattling of the nerves like the last earthquake,” he heard someone say. This angered Brad. They rendered shaking of the ground commonplace. It robbed the event of authenticity.
He knew if Jen-Zen stood beside him she would have understood; having your house shook to the core is not a typical day in Southern California and that when what is solid moved it is magic!
TWO MONTHS THEY SHARED and still the connection grew, when it shouldn’t have. Then again, a house was not supposed to move and the earth was not supposed to rock.
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