COFFIN, a serialized novel by Neil Kleid

[neil kleid]

Years ago I began writing a novel.

I've always had an ache in my heart to finish one, especially after trips to the local library and Barnes and Nobles, aurrounded by dozens and dozens of diverse books that moved a readership with ideas conveyed through words, rather than words and visuals which is what I'm used to.

I began writing it a year after the events of September 11th, 2001, when the War on Terror hit the heightened level its at today and reattacked it after a trip to Israel in '04 where I was warned to be careful on which bus I stepped on in fear that bombs could be lurking around every corner. Upon teturning to New York, that fear stayed with me and I was very jumpy on subways and buses, because if it was easy for a suicide bomber to get on a bus in highly secure Israel and blow it up, whats to stop one from getting on a C train, which isnt the picture of security, and sending it to train heaven?

COFFIN is the aftermath of that possibility. It's the HUMAN aftermath, focusing less on the hows, whens and technical aspects of getting a bomb on a train and blowing it up, but more on the psychological horror of a small band of passengers, waiting for someone to rescue them from Hell beneath the ground, forced to band together with individuals they only met moments ago. It's about claustrophobia, esteem, death, coping, infatuation and survival.

The novel is currently holding at 205 pages. I'm looking to get it to 4-450. I'm going to begin serializing the novel here at this journal with chapter one on Monday, the 13th. While the first 200 pages run, I'm going to aim to finish writing the entire thing.

I hope you'll join the passengers and I as we aim to rescue them from their metal coffin beneath the waters of the Hudson River, seeping in through cracks in the tunnel walls.

Time is running out and who know what we'll find together, down in the dark?

[i]Neil Kleid won the Xeric Grant for his novella, NINETY CANDLES, and his mafia graphic novel, BROWNSVILLE, debuts from NBM Publishing at the NY ComicCon. He writes THE INTIMIDATORS for Image Comics/Shadowline, and URSA MINORS!, his pop-culture comedy series, arrives from Slave Labor in June. Weep for him at ]www.rantcomics.com</i>

[Typo Lad]

Wow.

Can't think of anything to say past that.

[Paploo the Ewok]

You're a Writing Machine Niel.
A fantastic one which we must steal the blueprints for, following by a standard chase scene with Kangaroos. Congrats on getting the novel 1/2 way finished, starting serialization, and finishing it soonish :)

[neil kleid]

You're a Writing Machine Niel.
A fantastic one which we must steal the blueprints for, following by a standard chase scene with Kangaroos. Congrats on getting the novel 1/2 way finished, starting serialization, and finishing it soonish :)

Thanks!

Wait.

...Kangaroos?

[Azrael52]

I'll read the first 399-449 pages and then decide if I wanna read the last, so you've got me for a little while.

[neil kleid]

I should just give up on 399 and say its hopeless.

[Azrael52]

See, now that's the attitude to have. I've basically lived by this philosophy for years!

[heystacy]

Hey that's cool. I know writng can be time consuming. You must feel so good to be done with the material.

[Cam63]

Good luck with it, Neil. :)

[neil kleid]

Chapter One is now available online at:

http://coffin-thenovel.livejournal.com/


"Days later, when asked why he had brought the knife, Jeffrey Dean would claim that it had been for love.

"Battered and scratched, the Bowie had entered his life in the final year of grade school. He recalled summer barbecues at the lake near his parents’ summer cottage — the smell of burnt corn laced heavily among the trees. A game of freeze tag broken up due to the dinner bell alongside old man Capri’s shouts of 'the dogs’re callin’ your names, kids!'

"Those July dinners always started and ended the same way: with his father’s drunken rendition of Grace, usually incorporating the Star Spangled Banner and several Rat Pack ballads. Once the food hit the table, though, silence reigned. Only the methodical gnashing of teeth and occasional grunts for 'more' broke the air.

"It was at one of these carefree summer weekends that Jeffrey first saw the Bowie."

[neil kleid]

Chapter Two is now available online at:

http://coffin-thenovel.livejournal.com/


"If music is the glue that holds the world together, thought Annie, then garage band chic is the horse destroyed for the base.

"Shock -purple dreads swaying to a ritualistic tribal beat, Annie Wylen, queen of the Jersey City carport music scene, closed her eyes and let ecstasy carry her away in a rhythmic wave. Tattooed hands clutched a pair of cherry wood drumsticks, rumored to have belonged to Nirvana skins master Dave Grohl. The sticks slashed at the snares, dancing on the cymbals, and in a move uncommon for the indie/punk twenty-two year old, arced through the air like a high school baton. Annie grinned as she caught the sticks and with a flourish, clashed a final blow along the scratched and abused metal of her hi-hat.

"Dusting dirt from the seat of her pants, she shivered in the December chill and glanced at a fifties-replica clock hanging over a stack of gardening tools.

"Five-seventeen. Time to jet."

[neil kleid]

Chapter Three is now available online at:

http://coffin-thenovel.livejournal.com/

At five o’ clock, home seemed an interminable distance away for Tariq Sahdad.

Perhaps it had something to do with the backpack on his motel room end table.

He fidgeted in the chair near the room’s only window and stared across at the Manhattan skyline. So proud. So well-known.

It’s laughing at me,he thought.

Tariq could make out the space where the World Trade Center once stood. He traced the missing rectangles of the Towers along the frost-rimed panes of the window. Sliding his finger along the skyline, he touched the Empire State Building. Then the Chrysler Building. Landmarks.

The only landmark in my village is the stinking goat pit near the East Road.

[neil kleid]

Chapter Four is now available online at:

http://coffin-thenovel.livejournal.com

"He headed for the white light.

"Drawing closer to luminescence, Timothy DiMarca thought of how much it seemed like birth. The darkness fell behind, letting pitch-black fingers slide away and the onrushing cacophony of sound, movement and color envelop him.

"Pulling down on the cushioned brake, Timothy eased the silver PATH train into the Jersey City station and announced their arrival to the passengers in the eleven cars.

"As he watched the changing of the guard – Jersey bound civilians getting off; Manhattan night owls embarking — he lit a cigarette and exhaled. He breathed the recycled air of the cavernous station, knowing full well that in mere minutes he would be back underground, a modern day Charon ferrying the dead beneath the Styx.

"I’ve grown reflective down here, he thought. I suppose that’s what the job does to you. Gives you time to think."

[neil kleid]

Chapter Five is now available online at:

http://coffin-thenovel.livejournal.com

You’ve never played?”
“No!”
“Come on… everybody plays at least once.”
“Okay… maybe I have. But I never gave it a name.”

"In the history of the world, there have been three famous shades of red. The first was the deep, rich red of Eve’s Apple, eaten by Adam. It was the red of Desire, Want and Need, echoed in stories about Snow White, Johnny Appleseed and countless others. The second shade was a dark, beaten, livid red associated with Pharoah’s anger and the blood of the First Plague. This ugly red has worked its way into tales of terror, tragedy and murder– from the blood of Whitechapel victims to the venomous hue of the Nazi flags. Not a pretty red; not a welcoming shade. The final red was the blushing, glowing, fiery red of Adam and Eve’s discovery of their nakedness in the Garden of Eden. This red crept across David’s face when standing before the Queen of Sheba’s lustrous beauty. It has been the wild flush that accompanies every awkward child’s move and each lover’s gaze. It is the red of embarrassment, and it is this shade that slowly threatened to encapsulate Annie Wylen’s face."

[Cam63]

Thanks for posting the links, Neil. :)