Doors: A Fiction for Jazz Horn

Doors follows a young American writer who has long loved the work of Argentine writer Julio Cortazar. She travels to France to meet him, hoping to commune with a literary soul mate and to create a political alliance in the face of the brutal coup that has overtaken Chile. But circumstances compromise their brief encounter, and for years afterwards, though she and Cortazar correspond through books and letters, she feels unfulfilled by what she knows could have been a far more meaningful collaboration between them.

The writer feels this loss all the more keenly when Julio Cortazar dies . . . until inexplicable signs and portents lead her to understand that their relationship has not ended; the deceased writer may have more to say to her. She becomes obsessed with “reaching” Cortazar. She tries to summon him into her life with all the force of her mind, heart, and will. She imagines writing a book with a dead man, but without resorting to trickery or fantasy, and her attempts to conjure forth Cortazar’s spirit create a bizarre triangle between Julio, the writer and her bemused husband.

Ultimately the writer’s search for the door that will open between two worlds leads her to question the very nature of reality . . . and to the strange, joyous climax of her seemingly impossible quest.

Doors: A Fiction for Jazz Horn is now available from Red Hen Press, 818-831-0649 or visit their website at www.redhen.org or Bookshop.org or order through your favorite independent bookstore.