I hope you enjoy, “The Feet Say Run”.
I had never intended it to be quite so relevant to today’s
world as it turned out. I had thought I
was writing about history – surely, with a universal message, but still a piece
about a particular period – yet now I read certain passages and feel slightly
dizzy.
I quite consciously wanted to write a novel that was both
poetic and hard to put down – full of tension and plot. I feel there are not nearly enough novels
like this. I find so many literary
novels to be slow and disappointing, and I wanted, “The Feet Say Run,” to be
different - to be lyrical yet full of story and suspense.
I often get asked what the novel, “means”. Many readers, survivors of Literature 101 and
its ilk, wonder, ‘what does this mean’ or ‘what does that mean’ when reading a
novel. Yet few novelists go around
planting hidden meanings, symbols, like so many Easter Eggs, waiting to be
discovered. (Perhaps some modern poets make
a habit of this, but if you ask me, it’s a pretty annoying habit.) In my own experience, what a good novelist
wants to say, in almost every case, is pretty much right there in the story
itself: What it feels like to be alive,
to have this odd thing we call consciouness, to have this or that extraordinary
experience, to be alive in this time in history and in this particular
place.
In The Feet Say Run
the plot is intricate and involved, but what it says is not: That humans are
capable of extraordinary cruelty and kindness, stupidity and brilliance; that
life is chaotic and infinitely complex;
that this sturdy-seeming thing we call civilization is in truth
desperately fragile, and is held together by silken strands of compassion so
frayed they could tear at any moment.
And on that note…enjoy.
Dan
About the Author
Daniel A. Blum grew up in New York, attended Brandeis
University and currently lives outside of Boston with his family. His first novel Lisa33 was published by
Viking in 2003. He has been featured in Poets and Writers magazine, Publisher’s
Weekly and most recently, interviewed in Psychology Today.
Daniel writes a humor blog, The
Rotting Post, that has developed a loyal following.
His latest release is the literary
novel, The
Feet Say Run.
WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:
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About the Book:
Title:
THE FEET SAY RUN
Author: Daniel A. Blum
Publisher: Gabriel’s Horn Press
Pages: 349
Genre: Literary Fiction
At the
age of eighty-five, Hans Jaeger finds himself a castaway among a group of
survivors on a deserted island. What
is my particular crime? he asks. Why have I
been chosen for this fate? And so he begins his
extraordinary chronicle.
It
would be an understatement to say he has lived a full life. He has grown up in Nazi Germany and falls in
love with Jewish girl. He fights for the
Germans on two continents, watches the Reich collapse spectacularly into
occupation and starvation, and marries his former governess. After the war he goes on wildflower
expeditions in the Alps, finds solace among prostitutes while his wife lay in a coma, and
marries a Brazilian chambermaid in order to receive a kidney from her.
By
turns sardonic and tragic and surreal, Hans’s story is the story of all of the
insanity, irony and horror of the modern world itself.
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