Definitive First Edition, 2018
Authored by Barbara Rosenthal
Photographs by Barbara Rosenthal
Foreword by Joseph A. W. Quintela
Published by Deadly Chaps Press
WISH FOR AMNESIA is a modern-day mix of futuristic fable and historical fact that follows six idiosyncratic characters in New York and Rome from 1968-1985, Hippiedom to Halley's Comet. It pivots around Jack Rubin, son of Holocaust resistance workers, who develops a Messianic Complex as he struggles to be as exemplary as his father. Jack rises to great success in a life of politics, anthro-genetics and early computer technology, but is beset by doubt, paranoia and voices in his head. They say he has no right to lead until he has the perfect plan.
A troubled relationship with Beatrice, a blind, black performance artist, moves him to marry one of her students, Caroline, stunning, but disturbed. Caroline grows up in a dismal little town, her character set by rivalry. Jack becomes a tyrant to his family as he uses his wife for sex and their precocious daughter, Jewel, as his basis for creating a perfect hominid through genetic engineering.
The artist is named the child's godmother. She takes Jewel to Rome, where they fall in with a nefarious cabdriver, Toto, who causes several transformations in them both, some good, some harrowing.
Jack desperately strives to fulfill the potential of his father's sacrificed generation, but when he travels to Rome to bring his daughter home, as he descends a ramp at DaVinci Airport on the day of a historically infamous attack there, he's killed by someone he knows.
"...A very clever, powerful and complex book that demands full attention and careful consideration. This is not a book about good and bad, but a book about the contest between priorities of the mind, priorities of the body and priorities of the soul."
-Angharad Lodwick, Tinted Edges https: //tintededges.wordpress.com/2017/03/05/wish-for-amnesia/
"an adventure in language, as well as an entertaining "Siddhartha-type" read...[with] both pleasant and disturbing surprises...likely to touch a responsive chord.... The book is a kaleidoscope of references to obscure and eclectic subjects...[that are] delightful to experience.... I, for one, thank Joseph Quintela for publishing "Wish For Amnesia," and I believe many other readers will, too."
-Mike Foldes, Ragazine http: //ragazine.cc/2016/11/more-book-reviews-v12-n4/
"The novel Wish for Amnesia is fast-paced, surprising, heart-wrenching and beautiful. It touches the very core of the reader's soul, [and] will live up to its expectations of...unusual and amazing tidings...[that] weave intrigues for readers.... Barbara Rosenthal's achievement as author...is exemplary. [She] elevates storytelling to a high note....[in which] historical moments...beautifully intertwine in a [fictional] storyline [that] will haunt readers for a long time. The tale stands out in its imagery and its tight and gripping plot.... The incredible flow of the novel is not compromised even once! She builds an engrossing journey for each of the six characters and judiciously sees them through a befitting conclusion. Her photographs that accompany each chapter are a boost.... Wish for Amnesia...merits five stars and a read from every book lover around the world."
-Kleio Bhagwati, Wicked Venom / We Love Quality Books. http: //www.welovequalitybooks.biz/wish-for-amnesia-a-review/
"Rosenthal enjoys toying with the narrative form. A welter of minute real-world detail confines characters and reader inside a moving prison of fate. [Her] characters come of age, start a family, harbor messianic visions, travel, [drive], attend a party, keep journals...[during] points of high physical drama.... The book is making an impact where it counts...."
-Lehman Weichselbaum, Jewish Voice. http: //jewishvoiceny.com
About the Author: Barbara Rosenthal is a native New Yorker who taught in the English and Art Departments of 7 colleges over 33 years. Her first 4 books, Clues to Myself, Sensations, Homo Futurus and Soul & Psyche, were published by Visual Studies Workshop Press. She belongs to The Unbearables literary / art / performance collective in NYC, and her current publisher is Deadly Chaps Press, which released her literary novel, Wish for Amnesia in 2017, with 58 photos between the chapters, . Her stories, essays, poems, reviews and photographs have been included in many small magazines, such as Gathering of the Tribes; Flash Art International; And Then; Ragazine and The NY Times, and in anthologies such as Cradle and All (Faber & Faber) and The Big Book of Sex (Autonomedia). She has performed, screened videos, given talks and readings, and been included in many group shows, and in solo shows and readings in NY, Beijing, Moscow, Berlin, London, Brussels, Italy, Australia, and Prague, where she represented the US at TinaB: the Prague International Art Festival, in both Performance and Text in 2009 and 2010. The international preview-launch of Wish for Amnesia was in Barletta, Italy in Feb 2015. She has been featured reader in NY at Cornelia Street, Shades of Green, Parkside, Park Plaza, eMediaLoft, Bowery Poetry and HiFi.
barbararosenthal.org
https: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Rosenthal
