Thursday, February 27, 2014

Author Profile: Jack Durish


Rebels Mountain
By Jack Durish
Published by Venture Galleries, LLC
Copyright December 20, 2011
Pages: 301

Although this blog is primarily for book reviews, I also provide author profiles. Today that profile is for Jack Durish, author of Rebels On The Mountain, an historical fiction work that is available in all ebook formats on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and iTunes. What follows is a Q & A with the author.

Q. Please give us a one sentence synopsis of your book.

A. Nick Andrews, a U.S. Army spy assigned to unwrap the mystery of diplomatic failures in Cuba, avoids being entrapped in Castro's revolution until he is forced to bury his friends and fight.

Q. Who are the main characters and who would you like to see portray them in a movie?

A. Nick Andres: A U.S. Army Ranger and Korean War Veteran who has made a career of reconnaissance patrols behind the Iron Curtain - possibly portrayed by Stephen Amell.
Lucia Comas: An American educated, island born mulata, daughter of the second wife of don Carlos Comas, a Cuba sugar plantation owner, and love interest of Nick Andrews - possibly portrayed by Christina Milian.
Emma Regan: An American socialite whose husband, a retired pediatrician operates a free clinic on the sugar plantation she inherited, and sister to the don Carlos Comas' second wife, Sigourney Weaver.
Fidel Castro: The charismatic leader of the revolution that overthrew the Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista - possibly portrayed by Jsu Garcia.
Che Guevera: The Argentinian doctor who became one of Castro's most notorious lieutenants and his executioner following Fidel's rise to power - possibly portrayed by Guillermo Diaz.
Ernest Hemingway: Nobel Prize winning author and Havana resident who mingled freely in the halls of power in Havana and purportedly supported Castro's revolution - possibly portrayed by William Hurt.

Q. Can you tell us the story without revealing too much?

A. Nick Andrews uses the cover of a pleasure trip with friends, the Regans - a retired doctor and his socialite wife, who own an estate in Cuba - to infiltrate the island from its halls of power in Havana to the rebel camp in the mountains at the eastern end of the island. Unexpectedly, he rekindles a childhood crush with the island-born niece of the Regans, and makes friends with a loyal Fidelista rebel. Romance, rum, rumba and revolution layer themselves into a thrilling tale of intrigue, action and suspense.

Q. What inspired you to write this book and how long did it take?

A. I was slated to pilot a vessel from Galveston Bay to the Chesapeake with a stop in Havana when I was a young sailor but the trip was canceled due to several factors including the fall of the Batista government in Cuba. I suppose that I never let go of the disappointment of missing that adventure. Thus, I followed events in Cuba closely and studied the history of the island and its people during the intervening fifty years. I spent another two years cataloging and studying my research, and another year and a half to write and edit the manuscript.

Q. What other books have you written?

Dream Pirates - Fiction for young readers with impaired reading skills and new English speakers.
WordPerfect: Creative Applications - Technical manual
Infantry School: A Soldier's Journal - Personal memoir
Vietnam: A Soldier's Journal - Personal memoir
Trifles: Literary Dessert - A collection of short stories to be published soon

Q. Which authors inspired you, your style?

A. Many including Ernest Hemingway (voice), Mark Twain (irony), Charles Dickens (memorable characters).

Q. Where can we learn more about you and your books?

A. My web site at http://www.jackdurish.com contains my personal blog, as well as my biography, a synopsis of all of my books and links to them, and recommended web sites for anyone interested in reading.

Q. How can we follow you? (ie.) Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.

A. Twitter    Google+

Q. Is there anything else you would like us to know?

A. I am currently working on my second novel featuring Nick Andrews as a young soldier in the Korean War. Also, I have been posting to my blog a series of articles built from my research into Cuba with special emphasis on the love-hate relationship between the island and the United States. Most expect a change in U.S.-Cuban relations when Fidel Castro dies, and Americans will begin looking forward to visiting this Caribbean paradise, which has been off limits for so many years.

To pick up a copy of Rebels On The Mountain, go HERE




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