FLASH AND DAZZLE
Lou Aronica
The Story Plant/Trade Paperback and Ebook/Fiction
On Sale: November 5, 2013/$14.95 Print, $9.99 Ebook
978-1611880694 · 1611880696
Lou Aronica's FLASH AND DAZZLE, on sale November 5th, follows the highly successful print and digital republication of his The Forever Year, which became a USA Today bestseller and also claimed a spot as a #1 overall Nook bestseller in early 2013. Both novels were originally published under the pen name Ronald Anthony. As with The Forever Year, Aronica has revisited FLASH AND DAZZLE, updating references to pop culture, people and places, and lightly revising the story while remaining true to the 2007 original.
In FLASH AND DAZZLE,
readers see the world from the point of view of Rich Flaster as he and
his best friend and colleague Eric Dazman are forced to confront the
choices they have made, the secrets they have kept and the importance of
understanding what, and whom, they value most. Rich and Eric, now in
their late twenties, met in college, earned the nicknames "Flash" and
"Dazzle," headed to Manhattan to build their careers, and quickly became
Clio-winning collaborators riding high in NYC's ad world. Sharing work,
friends, the perks of success, tales of their latest conquests, a city
they love and a passion for music, neither stopped to examine life too
closely, nor planned too far ahead. Then, for Daz, there was no future.
Ironically,
having shared the best of times, it is during the worst of them that
Rich and Eric develop a true taste for life. With the clock ticking,
they search for a way to break through the surface of their
relationship, to explore each other's hearts, and to communicate at a
depth that men rarely reach. In doing so, they discover legacies,
burdens, and the sort of secrets that are only revealed when there's
nothing left to tell.
2013 marks the first time that FLASH AND DAZZLE and The Forever Year
have been published as ebooks, and new print copies of the Ronald
Anthony editions have been unavailable for a few years. Since their
initial publication, Aronica has built a strong following among readers
with his novels The Forever Year, Blue and the novella Until Again, each of which explores relationships, self-discovery and the lessons--and price-- of loving and being loved.
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Excerpt!
It
wouldn’t be fair to call Daz a slug. After all, he had been a third team
all-conference striker in college, and he was still slim and fleet. However,
getting him out of his apartment in the morning had always been a considerable
task. There was the ringing the doorbell
seven times before going in with my key part. There was the don’t you remember we have that meeting at
9:30 part. There was the, I really
don’t give a shit what your hair looks like part. Then there were the
inevitable battles with toothpaste choices (Daz was the only person I ever met
who kept multiple flavors of toothpaste in his bathroom), Cap’n Crunch (the
only thing he deigned to eat for breakfast), and Power Rangers (which appeared on ABC Family at 8:30 every morning
and from which Daz took surprising delight for someone his age.)
On
most days, by the time I got to his place to pick him up, I’d already read the
relevant sections of the Times and
the Journal and surfed three or four
entertainment, media and business sites on the web. About a year ago, it
finally dawned on me that I could sleep fifteen minutes later in the morning if
I brought my bagel and coffee with me so I could have breakfast while I waited
for Daz to get ready. On certain days I thought it might be smart to bring a lunch
as well.
It
was this way from our first days in the City. The only difference at the
beginning was that we were in the same apartment and Daz sometimes dragged
himself out of bed earlier if I made enough noise or if I did something like
flick water on his face after my shower.
The
other difference was the nature of our living quarters. The place on Avenue B
had been only moderately better than sleeping on the street. The lobby was
tastefully adorned in crack vials, hypodermic needles, and spent condoms, and
our “doorman” was a sixty-something guy with more jackets than teeth who
squatted in front of our building. My mother came to visit exactly once,
sneered at my decision to live here rather than commuting from a garden apartment
in Hastings, and told me that if I wanted to see her in the future, I knew the
Metro-North schedule. She didn’t even give me her little faux kiss on the cheek
on her way out of the door. This irked me until I thought about the possibility
of her being propositioned by a male prostitute before she could get a cab out
of the neighborhood. I imagined her scandalized expression and smiled.
A
year later, when we were recruited as a team by The Creative Shop, we made our
first “big move.” It was a walkup in Hell’s Kitchen – not exactly Fifth Avenue,
though a huge improvement over what it had been only a few years earlier – not
exactly Fifth Avenue, though a huge improvement over what it had been only a
few years earlier – but the space was a lot better and a much higher grade of
junkie and hooker hung around outside. When we got our first major bonus checks
– one of several to come our way in the past few years – we knew it was time to
find someplace a little more respectable, someplace where we could have a party and
not worry if our guests could make it in and
out of the building alive.
It
was my father’s accountant who first suggested we consider buying. The thought
had never even crossed my mind, though admittedly we did a terrible job of
managing the money we made and got brutalized on our 2011 tax returns. He also
told us that if we bought, we had to buy separately
to get the most bang for our tax deduction bucks. It was an odd thing to think
about. We had lived together for eight years at that point and while we knew
we’d eventually find romantic partners to move in with, the notion of no longer
being roommates for financial reasons
seemed incongruous. In the end, though, it really did make the most sense. And
with Daz at the 89th and Broadway and me at 91st and west
End, we were nearly roommates anyways.
“Who
do we have a meeting with this morning? He said, coming out of the bathroom
with a toothbrush in his mouth. He had different colored toothbrushes for the
different flavors. The gray brush meant fennel.
“It’s
just us.”
“Us?
Like you and me?” He returned to the bathroom to spit.
“And
Michelle and Carnie and Brad and Chess.”
“Sounds
like the meeting we had at Terminal 5
last night.”
We’d
all gone there to see Beam, an incredible British trance rock band.
“Except
this time we’re going to have a serious business conversation and it won’t look
as cool if your head lolls back and forth.”
“And
what will we be talking about again? He asked this question from his bedroom,
where he was almost certainly trying to decide if it was a red flannel shirt day or a blue
flannel shirt day.
“The
Koreans.”
“Motorcycles,
right?” he said, sticking his face out the door.
“Cars.
Affordable luxury for twenty-somethings.”
“Twenty-somethings
want luxury?”
“They
do if it’s affordable.”
“That’s
why you’re the word guy and I’m the picture guy. I wouldn’t have a clue how to
pitch this.”
“Good
thing I’m around then, huh?”
He
disappeared back into the bathroom, meaning we were somewhere between eight and
fifteen minutes of departure time, assuming I kept him away from the Power
Rangers.
I
finished my bagel and scrolled through my Twitter feed. Not finding anything to
capture my attention, I stood up and walked around the apartment. The morning
crowbar exercise notwithstanding, we spent much less time in Daz’s place than
we did in mind. This was primarily because I had the better toys – the
sixty-inch TV, the foosball table, the multiple gaming systems, the Band and
Olufsen stereo with full theatre sound (the
potential of which I never got to
exploit because of the co-op rules) – and also because I actually kept food in
the place. Daz hadn’t done particularly much with his home space. The
obligatory Crate and Barrel couch and coffee table, the Mondrian print squaring
off against the Dave Matthews Band poster, the formal dining table that he
never explained why he bought (I don’t know; maybe he wanted me to have my
bagel and coffee in comfort), the airbed he propped up against the wall next to
the couch rather than deflating, and the not a hell of a lot else.
Other
than the air hockey table. And the massage chair. The latter was Daz’s first
significant purchase once he bought his place. I asked him why he wanted one –
he never seemed in need of a massage
– and he gestured toward the chair to suggest that I give it a try. Once I did,
I understood immediately.
I
saw there now and set the chair to knead.
I would have loved to have one of these in my office, by one of the unspoken
deals Daz and I had was that we wouldn’t spend a lot of money on something the
other guys already owned. What was the point? I kicked the massage level up to medium and switched from kneading to
tapping. I thought about taking my shoes off to use the foot massager and then
checked the time on my phone instead.
“I
mentioned that the meeting was today and not in August, right?” I said, my
voice vibrating from the thumping my back was receiving.
“I’m
done,” he said, walking over to stand in front of me in blue flannel. “Just a
quick one-on-one with the Cap’n and we’ll be out of here.”
I
turned off the chair and got up. Daz opened the box of cereal and poured it
directly into his mouth. “Let’s go,” he said, taking a swig from a milk carton
and grabbing his keys.
I
gathered my stuff and we made our way out the door. Daz locked the two
deadbolts and my eye fell on his keychain – a plastic hot dog that he’d burned
with a cigarette lighter in honor of our first (and only) camping trip. He’d
toted that thing around for the last ten years.
“I
think Michelle and I had a little thing last night,” he said as we walked out
onto Broadway to begin our search for a cab.
I
laughed. “I was with the two of you the entire time. You didn’t have a thing.”
“No,
I think we might have. It was an eye
thing.”
“An
eye thing as in she saw you and said hi?”
“Don’t
be a schmuck. I can tell the
difference, you know. I think she kinda likes me.”
“Daz,
everyone kinda likes you. See that woman who just stepped in front of us to
steal our cab? I’ll bet she likes you. You’re a likable guy. I just wouldn’t
get my hopes up about Michelle if I were you.”
“She
came to my office just to see my drawings
the other day. She’s never done that before.”
“Daz,
reachable goals, remember? Reachable goals.”
“I
think you might be surprised here.”
“Surprised
wouldn’t begin to describe it. Stunned speechless maybe. Or shocked to the
point where I needed a defibrillator.”
He
regarded me sternly. “Why do you think I couldn’t get a woman like Michelle?”
“Did
I say that?”
“Pretty
much exactly that.”
“You’re
misunderstanding me. I’m speaking specifically about Michelle. A woman like Michelle – you know, gorgeous,
smart, clever, burgeoning career – you could get a woman like that. Anytime you
wanted, probably.”
“But
not Michelle specifically. Translation, please.”
“A
translation isn’t necessary. Right now, the only thing that’s important is that
we find some way to get the hell downtown.”
Eventually
we took a gypsy cab, one of those out-of-town car services that roamed around
the City skimming off fares from Yellow cabs during rush hours. I hated doing
this – I was very loyal to my city –
but at 9:05 on a weekday, it really was the best we could do.
“If
we left earlier, we wouldn’t be riding in a fifteen-year-old Impala right now,
you know,” I said.
“If
we left later, we wouldn’t be doing
this either.”
“You
know, it’s a good thing you’re an artistic genius. Otherwise you’d be working
at Burger King. No, you’d lose your job at Burger King because you’d always be
showing up late. Then you’d be out on the street collecting bottles to exchange
for cheap liquor.”
“Never
happen.”
“You don’t think
so?”
“Nope. Cause you’d
be around to drag my ass out of bed so I could keep my job making French
fries.”
“Don’t
be so sure.”
“Of
course you would,”
Yeah,
of course I would. If I could be relied upon for anything, it would be making
sure that Daz got to work at a reasonable hour. Beyond that, as it turns out, I
was lacking in an entire suite of skills best friends were supposed to have.
However, he would never be homeless as long as I was around.
We
rode in silence for a couple of minutes, bucking and stopping every eight
seconds or so as traffic dictated. Then something caught Daz’s eye and he
pulled out the sketch-pad he always carried in his backpack and started
drawing.
“What
are you doing?”
“That
jogger we passed gave me an idea.”
I
hadn’t even noticed a jogger. “An idea for what?”
“For
the Space Available campaign.”
Space
Available was a custom-built closet company whose account we recently acquired.
How a jogger related to this escaped me.
“Let
me see,” I said, leaning toward him in the seat.
He
pulled the sketchpad back. “Not yet.” He smiles over at me. “I want to show it
to Michelle first.”
“She’ll
never love you like I love you, Daz.”
“There’s
another thing we can all be thankful for.”
He
drew for a big longer, and while I knew there was a very good chance this
brainstorm of his wouldn’t produce anything – so many of our ideas didn’t – I
was curious. I tried to angle my eyes over without appearing too obvious, but
Daz was doing a great job of blocking my view. Finally, he closed the
sketchbook and returned it to his backpack, glancing out at the street as
though there was nothing to this.
“Traffic’s
a bitch today,” he said. “We really should have left earlier. You gotta get on
the beam, Flaccid.”
© Lou Aronica
“The chapter about trying to
get Daz to the office (also known as the daily Sisyphean struggle)”
2,109 words
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ABOUT LOU ARONICA
Lou Aronica is the author of several works of fiction and nonfiction. His novels include Flash and Dazzle, the USA Today and #1 Nook bestseller, The Forever Year, the national bestseller, Blue, which was a top twenty title on Amazon's general fiction bestseller list, and the novella Until Again and Differential Equations, written with Julian Iragorri. He is co-author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Element and Finding Your Element (both with Sir Ken Robinson) and the national bestseller, The Culture Code
(with Dr. Clotaire Rapaille). Prior to focusing on writing, he spent
two decades as a senior executive in the publishing industry, including
stints as Publisher of Avon Books and Deputy Publisher of Bantam Books.
Currently Publisher of The Story Plant, which publishes a wide range of
fiction in both print and electronic formats, he splits his time between
writing, publishing and editing.
He is
currently at work on a book about education, his third collaboration
with Sir Ken Robinson, and preparing to begin his next novel.
He lives in southern Connecticut with his family.