Title: Song of the Oceanides
Author: JG Zymbalist
Genre: YA/NA fantasy/steampunk
Song of the Oceanides is a quirky but
poignant coming-of-age tale about children, Martians, freaky Martian
hummingbird moths, and alluring sea nymphs.
The first thread relates the
suspenseful tale of a Martian girl, Emmylou, stranded in Maine where she is
relentlessly pursued by the Pinkerton Detective Agency’s
Extraterrestrial-Enigma Service. The
second thread concerns her favorite Earthling comic-book artist, Giacomo
Venable, and all his misadventures and failed romances. The final thread deals with a tragic young
lad, Rory Slocum, who, like Emmylou, loves Giacomo’s comic books and sees them
as a refuge from the sea nymphs or Oceanides incessantly taunting and
tormenting him.
As much as anything, the triple narrative serves to show how art may
bring together disparate pariahs and misfits—and give them a fulcrum for
friendship and sense of communal belonging in a cruel world
Author Bio
J.G. Źymbalist is the pseudonym of a very
reclusive author who grew up in Ohio and West Germany. He began writing Song of the Oceanides
as a child when his family summered in Castine, Maine where they rented out
Robert Lowell’s house. There, inspired
by his own experiences with school bullying and childhood depression, the
budding author began to conceive the tale.
For several years, J.G.
Źymbalist lived in the Old City of Jerusalem where he night clerked at a series
of Palestinian youth hostels. There he
wrote the early draft of an as yet unpublished Middle-Eastern NA fantasy. Returning from the Middle East, he completed
an M.F.A. in poetry at Sarah Lawrence College.
The author returned to Song of the Oceanides while working for
the Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society, May-September, 2005. He completed the full draft in Ellsworth,
Maine later that year.
He has only recently decided
to self-publish a few of his previous works.
Foreword Reviews has called his
writing “innovative fiction with depth,” and Kirkus Indie has called his style “a lovely, highly descriptive
prose that luxuriates in the details and curios of his setting.”
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