HASTINGS STREET:
Boulevard of Blues
A novel-noir psychological thriller.
Theo Czuk’s 2nd novel, HASTINGS STREET, has harvested 5 (!) major awards including:
1st place 2020 THE NEXT GENERATION INDIE AWARDS in General Fiction/Psychological Thriller.
1st place in the 2021 CIBA CLUE AWARDS featuring best in Suspense/Thriller.
About The BLACK BOTTOM
The Black Bottom was a neighborhood that served as ground zero for Detroit’s contribution to jazz. Every major industrialized city had them. The speakeasies, the blind pigs, the honky-tonks that were the testing grounds and launching pad of America’s greatest of art form; jazz.
It was in these back-alley, late night gathering holes that musicians banded for the voyaging of jazz while it was vaudeville that dispersed the craze across America. This was jazz in its adolescence. The raw, untamed, devil-may-care youth of jazz.
HASTING STREET harkens back to an earlier time in Detroit’s history when the city was an agricultural community and this low basin was legendary for its rich, black soil. There is poetic beauty to this area transitioning from the cultivation of agriculture to the cultivation of music-culture.
Today the neighborhood of The Black Bottom is buried under thousands of tons I 375 freeway. But the voices of the people entombed there, and the music they generated, call out from beneath the stone.
HASTINGS STREET: Boulevard of Blues is what they have to say.
About the novel:
HASTINGS STREET is a Novel Noir psychological thriller set in the roar of a 1927 Detroit.
In the America of the 1920’s, jazz was smack dab in its formative years, distending the edges of the musical landscape.
Kaleb Kierka is a man without memory. Locked in the grip of amnesia as a result of a violent beating, he must quickly learn his history or become a victim to it.
Kaleb’s narration unfolds of a young man who is at once an owner of an underground speakeasy, a Purple Gang affiliate, and a piano player in the seedier speakeasies of Detroit. Kaleb will need to recover his history quickly if he is to have any hope of avoiding his demise.
The narration follows Kaleb as he negotiates the roar of the 20s. But time is short for Kaleb to recover his memory as violence follows him like a dark shadow; a silhouetted memory of a violent chronicle.
Jazz, amnesia, the Roaring Twenty’s, prohibition, gang wars, union wars and 1927 Detroit are all explored in this psychological thriller.
What the book reviewers have to say:
“There is a cinematic flavor to the way The Black Bottom unfolds … but there is an abiding literary quality that Czuk never deserts. Czuk has a commanding presence as an author … (and) has rendered the urban world of Detroit in the 1920’s as few other writers have dared…”
“He brings the Detroit of 1927 to vivid life… and brings descriptive powers to bear that bring readers into his authorial vision … there’s real poetry present on many of its page and its artistry is unquestionable.
“Czuk invokes setting with an eye for significant detail many writers will envy Theo Czuk’s The Black Bottom: The Measure of Man is an entertaining fictional ride … is an entertaining fictional ride from an artist whose work deserves appreciation on the widest possible scale. He is beholden to no one and occupies his own niche in the modern literary world.”
“The Black Bottom: The Measure of Man is a rollicking and hard-boiled look at a city and time in American history difficult to find in modern American fiction. Theo Czuk’s literary talents are abundant …”
HEART-SCARRED:
A literary western.
Theo Czuk’s 1st novel, HEART-SCARRED won the 2014 LARAMIE Book Award for Best Literary Western.
In 2020, HEART-SCARRED was inducted into LARAMIE Book Awards WESTERN HALL OF FAME
About HEART-SCARRED
Consciousness ebbed and flowed as Rory Casso chipped at the ice with his Bowie. Three inches of winter ice lay between Rory and water. And food. And life. If he could not traverse these mere inches of frozen liquid, life would be short. But an even uglier deliberation than death bedeviled Casso’s thoughts for even as he grappled with the ice, Rory recounted the contingents of outlaws and Indians, face thick with the paint of war, that were stalking his beloved Bronwyn as she negotiated the wilds of these western reaches. Bloodied, battered and bruised, Rory Casso continued chip-chipping at the ice with the Bowie knife until the demands of the concussion’s cataleptic grip squeezed consciousness from his flayed body.
Review:
Jill Beauchamp, HORIZON BOOOKS
“I don’t tend to read westerns, but this one has great characters, psychological insights, a romance, and, of course, action packed adventure that makes Heart-Scarred appealing to readers of all kinds.
The protagonist, Rory Casso, is lonely and searching both within and without for a feeling of home. Bronwyn Mason is a strong and strong-hearted young woman who knew Rory when they were children. Juke Bauque, Rory’s partner in payroll deliveries to the wild west, is half African American and half Native American, with the soul of a poet.
When these three join up against the notorious Thompson gang, there are sparks of all kinds flying!
As Rory battles the onset of winter, the Thompson gang and his internal demons, the reader is taken on a ride of pure storytelling excitement.”
Goodreads Review:
Dave rated it really liked it.
Shelves: western-fiction
This is likely the most literate western I’ve ever read. In some ways, it reminds me of Charles Portis’ True Grit, which featured a formal style and vocabulary that at first struck me as a little odd but quickly grew on me. The classics are all here – the honorable lawman, an orphan raised by Indians to give him a greater appreciation of and skills in nature, a fiery and independent woman who also happens to be a school teacher, a vile gang of outlaws. But they’re presented in such a way that they don’t feel stale at all. Through flashbacks, we learn each character’s story as we work toward a resolution of the current crisis that involves foul weather, treacherous terrain, attacking Indians and the aforementioned gang of villains. The underlying theme in the back stories is “home,” and what it means to each of these people.
Amazon Review:
A must read even if you’re not a fan of Western literature
By Richard Simon November 5, 2016
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
What a wonderful read. No wonder it won the 2014 Laramie Award for Literary Western. The characters are compelling and the story evokes every human emotion. The writing is sharp and clear. A+
Chanticleer Book Reviews:
Author Theo Czuk provides a refreshing wave of storytelling in his award-winning literary Western debut novel, Heart-Scarred.
Rory Casso works as a shotgun freighter with the Pinkerton Detective Agency alongside his partner, Juke Bauque, running capital (i.e., money, furs, gold) up and down the Platte for the Reynolds Savings and Loan payroll. Because bandits lay traps along the way, the partners travel separately. Rory, who lived among the Hunkpapa Indian tribe when he was a boy, uses his skill of trail scouting to keep away from the gang. Juke may be part Native American, but he isn’t familiar with indigenous skills since he was “privately tutored and socially cultured.”
Enter Bronwyn Mason, a childhood friend of Rory’s who plans to open the first one-room school house in Rawlings. Although she hasn’t seen Rory in years, Bronwyn is relieved to meet Rory’s partner, Juke so that she can hire him to be one of her drivers to transport three wagon loads of school material. Bronwyn’s joy about establishing a school house quickly turns to sorrow when she hears that the Thompson gang murdered her father, the esteemed Marshal Isham Mason. Even though she is grief-stricken, she is determined to fulfill her mission. Bronwyn’s traveling band faces various calamities en route, especially when they get held up by Indian warriors. What she doesn’t expect is that the person who comes to the rescue is none other than Rory. Romance blooms between the childhood friends and all appears to go well until the Thompson gang catches up with them.
Western enthusiasts in search of a refreshing take on their favorite genre have much to look forward to in Czuk’s award-winning novel. Czuk adds verisimilitude to his story by incorporating a host of realistic characters. Veering away from stereotypes, Czuk presents protagonists that mimic the educational and societal waves taking place during the mid to late 1800s.
Czuk creates three different people from three different educational backgrounds. Rory is a white man whose comes from a dysfunctional home but finds stability living among Native Americans. Juke, who is half black and half Native American, is brought up in the cultural surroundings of Boston—the antithesis of what would traditionally come out of western tribes. Bronwyn—who learned everything she needed to know about life through her father—in many respects reflects an “Annie Oakley” figure, but much more feminine.
There is more to the Old West than being chock-full of rough and tough characters. Much of the gruff personas came from merely surviving day to day. Czuk aptly weaves in plenty of historical information that shines a light on the differences of what life was like between the eastern and western territories. While pointing out Native American history (including connections with Ireland during the Great Potato Famine), Czuk gives attention to education, or the lack thereof, especially in the West, and thus Bronwyn’s desire to develop a one-room schoolhouse.
Czuk offers a well-balanced mix of storytelling, history, engaging dialogue, and thought-provoking themes that go beyond the good, bad and the ugly in his novel, Heart-Scarred.
By A Lock