Dreams of Drowning - Book Tour and Giveaway

 
​Board a ship that travels between real time where lives are buffeted by political conflict, tragedy and loss and another mysterious time where pain is healed, and love is eternal.  

Dreams of Drowning
by Patricia Averbach
Genre: Literary Fiction, Magical Realism

Dreams of Drowning is a work of magical realism that moves between real time where lives are buffeted by political conflict, tragedy and loss and another mysterious time where pain is healed, and love is eternal.

It’s 1973 and Amy, an American ex-pat, is living as an illegal immigrant in Toronto where she’s fled to escape the scandal surrounding her twin sister’s death by drowning. Joanie’s been gone two years, but Amy still hears her cries for help. Romance would jeopardize the secrets Amy has to keep, but when she meets Arcus, a graduate student working to restore democracy in Greece, she falls hard. Arcus doesn’t know about Amy’s past, and she doesn’t know Arcus has secrets of his own, including the shady history of an ancient relic he uses as a paperweight.

In 1993 Toronto, Jacob Kanter, a retired archaeologist, is mourning his dear wife and grappling with his son’s plans to move him to a nursing home. Despite double vision, tremors, and cognitive impairment, he remembers sailing as a youth and sets out toward the lake where he boards a ferry boat embarking on its maiden voyage. He expects a short harbor cruise, but the Aqua Meridian is larger than it looks, and time is slippery on the water. When he hears a drowning woman call for help his story merges with Amy’s, and they discover they have unexpected gifts for one another.

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​Prologue

"Help!" Joanie's shouts are barely audible above the wind and the roar of the outboard motor as she struggles to keep her head above the waves. I put my hands over my ears and close my eyes, but she's still there, still struggling to stay above the water, the panic in her eyes a mirror of my own, her pale, freckled skin, her green eyes fraught with horror, identical to mine. I watch helpless, my heart pounding, until she disappears, as she always does, beneath the roiling waters of Lake Ontario.


Dreams of Drowning
Part One

Amy
April 1973

“Amy, wake up.” Mrs. Klein was shaking my shoulder. “You can’t sleep here. If you need to sleep, go home.”
How had I fallen asleep with the clatter and bang of the old linotype reverberating through the shop? I picked my head up from the drafting table and struggled to bring Mrs. Klein into focus. She was as solid and gray as the presses she ran. I felt a chill as her steely eyes took in my tousled hair and bloodshot eyes then moved to the floor where a chaotic mess of colored markers, X-Acto knives and technical pens lay scattered.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep again last night, but I’m okay now. I’ll get back to work.” I was already on my knees gathering up the fallen art supplies as quickly as I could.
“When was the last time you had a proper night’s sleep?”
I took a moment to consider. “Nineteen seventy-one.”
Esther Klein was my mother’s best friend, more like my aunt than my employer, but she wasn’t amused. My literally falling asleep on the job had pushed her too far.
“That’s not funny. You need to see a doctor.”
“Now that is funny. How am I supposed to do that?” Legal Ontario residents had magic OHIP cards that entitled them to almost unlimited medical care, but she knew I’d slipped into the country illegally and had no papers.
“You can pay him in cash, the same way we pay you, so there’s no record. I’ll explain the situation to my doctor.”
“Sorry, can’t risk it. I’ve got to stay under the radar, but thanks anyway.”
Mrs. Klein’s face darkened, and a deep crease appeared between her eyes. “Go home, drink some tea, take a hot bath and think about whether you want a future here or not.”
My heart skipped a beat. Was she threatening to fire me? She knew I’d be on the street or worse without this job. I could hear a slight quaver in my voice as I responded. “What about this poster?” I pointed to the design job I’d been working on. “They need it by tomorrow.”
She examined the work on my design table and nodded her approval. I’d hand drawn shadows beneath stenciled letters making the company name, Revolution Records, appear to float over a background of brightly colored discs. “You can finish in the morning. Now go home and get some sleep.”
What was the point of going home? It was easier to sleep in a noisy print shop than back in my apartment where Joanie’s ghost followed me from room to room. It had happened two
years ago, yet her desperate calls for help still woke me from panicked dreams of drowning. I gathered up my coat and purse wondering if I’d just ruined my last chance for a new life.
I was half-way out the door when Mrs. Klein called me back. “And don’t forget the party tonight. We’re expecting you at seven.”
I thought of rushing out the door, pretending I hadn’t heard, but Mrs. Klein was standing right beside me. I paused and took a breath. “Thank you, I really appreciate the invitation, but like I said, I don’t do parties.”
She stepped between me and the door, blocking my only means of escape. “This has gone on long enough. You’re not the one who died.”
Mr. Klein and Eddie, our pressman, were watching from the back room. I didn’t want to make a scene, but - a party? “I’m sorry, I know you want to help, but I’m just not ready.” Me, the good-time girl of Fairport High, turning down another party. Joanie wouldn’t have believed it.
Mrs. Klein took an umbrella off the coat rack and handed it to me. “You’ll need this, and you’re coming to the party. There will be people your age from the sailing club.”
Was she kidding? Sailors were the last people I’d want to meet. The very thought gave me the willies. I started to say no again, but she wouldn’t listen.
“Consider it a condition of your employment, and I mean it. Oh, and bring a box of baklava from that Greek bakery near your apartment. No excuses.”
Then she shoved me out into the rain and shut the door.

****
Jacob
April 1993

Rain exaggerates my tendency to see double. It's difficult to distinguish the reflection of images on water, through glass, or on wet pavement from the blurred images resulting from my weakened ocular muscles. I turn away from the window where rivulets of water are playing tricks with my eyes, melting the pane, and leaving me suspended between worlds. It's been like this for eight years now, ever since Bessie died. On clear days I can tilt my head twenty degrees to the left and bring faces, signs, and scenery into focus, but on rainy days I confuse reflections with diplopia, my double vision, and become perplexed. My thick corrective glasses and cocked head make me look like a myopic spaniel, but they allow me to look people in the face and see just one nose, just two eyes. I can look at my son, Michael, and see a busy man with graying hair and sagging jowls, and not someone who wobbles back and forth between adolescence and middle age every time I blink.
Most people aren’t aware of my disability. Sometimes even I forget because there are days, even weeks, when things come into focus. The past and present don’t seem so blurred and muddled. Before Bessie died there'd been another kind of doubleness. There'd been two of us, a pair, coupled for nearly fifty years. Double meant increase, abundance, joy. Afterwards it meant distorted vision, ocular fatigue, and cold dinners in front of a television with an oscillating horizontal.
There's a brochure on my desk from Bayside Manor Retirement Home. Michael left it for me even though he knows I can no longer read small print on shiny paper. No matter, I know what it says. It says, old man, you've had it. You're done. Pack up and move along, you've outlived your welcome in the world.
A small incident set him off, a minor mishap he’s blown out of proportion. I was out walking after dinner a few weeks ago and, preoccupied, I missed my turn. Nothing odd about that, but by the time I realized what I’d done the sun had set and I was wandering around in the dark. With better eyes I could have managed, but well, I got lost. Whichever way I turned I only got further afield until I was exhausted. I must have been stumbling about because a policeman stopped to ask if I needed help. “I’m fine, just fine,” I told him. “But I seem to have misplaced my apartment.” It was a joke. I thought he’d laugh and point me in the right direction. Instead, he drove me home then notified my son. Ever since then, all Michael talks about is, wouldn’t I be happier living with other people who’d cook my meals and see that I was safe?

​Patricia Averbach began her writing career at sixteen as the entirely unqualified literary assistant to Anzia Yeszierska, Jewish-American author of the immigrant experience. A native Clevelander, she’s a former director of The Chautauqua Writers Center in Chautauqua, New York. Her newestnovel, Dreams of Drowning (Bedazzled Ink, 2024), was a finalist for the Tucson Festival of Books and Chanticleer’s Somerset Award for Literary Fiction. Previous novels include Painting Bridges (Bottom Dog Press, 2013) and Resurrecting Rain (Golden Antelope Press, 2020.) Her poetry chapbook, Missing Persons, (Ward Wood Publishing, 2013) was cited by Times of London Literary Supplement (November 2014) as one of the best small collections of the year. She lives with her husband in a suburb of Cleveland when she’s not visiting her daughters in Toronto, Maui and Peru or hanging out in a virtual world called Second Life. To learn more go to http://www.patriciaaverbach.com.


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What is the first book that made you cry?
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Does writing energize or exhaust you?
It generally exhausts me, although there are wonderful days when I get lost in it and never want to come up for air.

Does a big ego help or hurt writers?
It takes a certain amount of ego to imagine that other people will care about your ideas and be interested and amused by your world view.

Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?
I certainly write with readers in mind and do my best to create characters and plots they’ll find entertaining and engaging. However, my main objective is to write the cleverest, funniest, most insightful book that I can and then trust that my readers are smart and savvy enough to enjoy a story that’s more nuanced and unexpected

What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer?
During my years as director of The Chautauqua Writers Center I had the opportunity to spend my summers with some of the finest writers working today. Many of them taught workshops through our writer-in-residence program or through the Chautauqua Writers’ Festival and I was able to learn from all of them. That said, the four writers who have helped me the most are the not so famous members of a writers group I’ve been part of for the past eight years. Although we meet online in a virtual world we’ve come to know one another well and have each produced three or four novels over our time together. Two members, not me, have completed PhDs in creative writing during that time as well. One of us is a publisher as well as an author, and one of us, again not me, spent most of his career writing for television before starting to write novels. The fourth is a poet and a Sikh who has spent most of his life in Australia, Singapore and India. Our voices are diverse and each of us produces work that is distinctive and unique, yet we’ve come to rely on one another for comments and advice. I don’t know if I’d have ever completed anything without their encouragement.

Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
Each of my books stands on its own, although I toyed with the idea of setting my second novel in the same small town where the first novel took place. The first book was set in the mid-seventies, the second around forty years later so I thought of having the young characters in my first book make cameo appearances as old codgers in the second, but the story went in a different direction so that never happened. Maybe I’ll go back and write a sequel one day, but probably not. I’m always chasing the shiny, new object in front of me.

If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Don’t listen to your mother. I told my mother I wanted to be a writer when I was in college and she told me that if I had any real talent I would already be famous – or words to that effect. Even then I knew that was crazy, but I felt deflated and defeated anyway. Writing as a career is tough and it takes time to learn your craft and to find your voice. You’ll almost certainly need a day job or some other career to sustain you until your writing starts to make more money than it costs. But don’t give up. The journey itself is worth the effort and you’re never too old to begin.

As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
A turtle? My writing practice is definitely slow and steady, not fast and flashy. If I wanted to flatter myself, and who doesn’t, I’d make my turtle very old and wise, like the old sea turtle in Alice in Wonderland. The Mock Turtle tells Alice that his teacher was an old sea turtle called Tortoise and when Alice asks why they called him Tortoise if he was a turtle, he replies, “Why, we called him Tortoise because he taught us.”

What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters?
Nothing, since I don’t base my characters on particular people. When I’m asked where I get my characters I always answer, “They aren’t based on anyone I know. They’re based on everyone I know. They’re all composites of actual people, fictional people, people I read about in the newspaper and people who populate my dreams.

Describe your writing space.
I’d love to say that I’ve created a writing sanctuary in a garden overlooking the sea, or in a snug cabin in a pine wood, but that would be a lie. I work out of a walk-in closet that’s been outfitted with a desk, a chair and a bookcase. I try to ignore the laundry drying on the rack behind my head and my husband talking on the phone in the next room.

What time of the day do you usually write?
They say that young people write at night and old people write in the morning. I write in the late morning or early afternoon. That’s not because I’m middle aged, which I’m not, but because it takes me that long to stop procrastinating and to get down to business.

On a typical day, how much time do you spend writing?
I don’t write every day. I write two or three hours a day three or four days a week. Slow but steady.

How do you deal with the emotional impact of a book (on yourself) as you are writing the story?
I’ve found that there is an aspect of writing that is very similar to acting, except that an author plays all the characters. I’ve definitely wept real tears when writing a sad scene or felt my heart race when I’ve put a character in danger, but I love when that happens. That’s my body telling me that the story’s come alive.

Do you have a favorite character that you have written? If so, who? And what makes them so special.
There’s an elderly gentleman in my newest book named Jacob Kanter. He’s a retired archaeology professor who’s dealing with failing health, the loss of his wife and a son who wants him in an old age home. But even in his eighties, even as he approaches the end of life, his spirit remains vibrant and alive. He’s funny, wise and adventurous to the end. I can still hear his voice in my head and I’d love to go on talking to him.

Where can readers purchase your books?
My books are available on Amazon, at Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Google Play and through my website: www.patriciaaverbach.com.

Where can readers find out more about you and your books?
You could start with my website: www.patriciaaverbach.com or just google Patricia Averbach, author.

Have any of your books been made into audiobooks? If so, what are the challenges in producing an audiobook?
I’m glad you asked about audiobooks since Dreams of Drowning will be coming out in audio this spring. I’m paying for the audio publication myself since my publisher only has the print and digital rights to the book. It’s expensive and it’s likely that I won’t make my money back, but as another author told me when he produced an audio book, “What price joy?”

Are you working on anything at the present you would like to share with your readers about?
I’m working on another novel right now. Not to give too much away, it takes place in Cleveland during the build up to World War Two, and involves a Jewish family living in my grandmother’s old neighborhood. The family includes a young girl, her spinster aunt, her grandfather and a ghost. I’ll say no more.

What book is currently on your bedside table?
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese and I’m loving every minute of it. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s one of those books that you wish would never end.

How many bookshelves are in your house?
My husband bought five matching bookcases for my old office that covered an entire wall of our old house. We filled those bookcases plus all the bookcases in the family room and my daughters’ bedrooms and there were more books in boxes in the basement. We had a lot of books. And then we sold the house and moved into a condo that meant leaving a lof of things, including most of our books behind. We still have several bookcases filled with our old favorites, but I’ve learned to let go and to let the books I love live in memory and the library.

What’s for dinner tonight? What would you rather be eating?
I love cooking and food usually finds its way into everything I write. We eat a lot of fish and pasta since my daughters are pescatarians. However, my husband is an unrepentant carnivore so I cook brisket and braised short ribs as well. I especially like ethnic recipes that include a lot of vegetables, spice and seasoning.

Share something your readers wouldn’t know about you.
At the risk of making myself seem goofy, I spend quite a bit of time in a computer generated world called Second Life. There’s a vibrant writing community in that virtual world and I’ve made good friends and valuable contacts in there, plus I always look great and never have a bad hair day. In fact, my avatar was on the cover of Lilith Magazine the year they published my article about the Jewish community in Second Life. Imagine, being a cover girl at my age.

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May 21
kickoff at Silver Dagger Book Tours
Bedazzled By Books

May 22
All Things Dark & Dirty
Beautiful Books

May 23
Haley Cavanagh Books
Stormy Nights Reviewing & Bloggin'

May 24
The Sexy Nerd 'Revue'
Literary Gold

May 25
The Book Junkie Reads . . .

May 27
The Dungeon Crawlers
Sylv.net

May 28
Book Bites....with a side of coffee
The Book Dragon

May 29
Book Reviews by the Reluctant Retiree
Books all things paranormal and romance

May 30
Plain Talk Book Marketing

May 31
Webs and Blogs For Writers
Author Sahara Foley

June 3
Naughty Nightie Book Blog
C.A.Milson

June 4
All The Write Stuff
My beauty my books

June 5
Tina Donahue - Heat with Heart
Country Mamas With Kids

June 6
I'm Into Books
The Scratching Post

June 7
Anna del C. Dye official page
Celticlady's Reviews

June 8
A Wonderful World of Words – GUEST POST

June 10
Craving Lovely Books
Inside the Insanity

June 11
Wibell's Worlds – GUEST POST

June 12
J.M. Northrup
Girl with Pen

June 13
eBook Addicts

June 14
Insane Books
Painting With Words

June 16
Sybrina's Book Blog – GUEST POST

June 17
Kenyan Poet
Royally Insane Books

June 18
The Bookshelf Fairy

June 19
Twisted Book Ramblings
Trixie Reports Books

June 20
Scrupulous Dreams

June 21
Midnight Book Reader

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