Julian Gallo

Late 1990s New York City. A poor and desperate would be novelist navigates the minefield of a dysfunctional relationship with an equally dysfunctional painter named Juliana. Each day is the same: living in the searing heat of his dilapidated apartment, unable to write, unable to understand the woman who keeps tormenting him with endless mind games. He's at wit's end and wants nothing more than to run off to Paris in order to follow in the footsteps of his literary heroes. But Paris has to wait as he weaves in and out of New York City nightlife as his friendships deteriorate and his reasons for going on evaporates. Upon learning the news of a dire situation of a good friend, as well as his long desired sexual encounter with Juliana finally taking place, he as no idea how much more complicated things can become.

Oliver is a translator in Paris working on a book by an obscure French author. A chance meeting of his friend's sister on the metro leads to a torrid affair. When he discovers that she lives in the very neighborhood, and building, used in Bertolucci's controversial film 'Last Tango In Paris', their affair takes on eerie parallels. None of this is lost on Oliver, who is seemingly amused by it all. However it is a far cry from the film as these two middle aged lonely hearts throw caution to the wind, which may echo the film more than Oliver intends. 'Last Tondero In Paris' explores the tendency for people to act solely on their own selfish interests and desires, without giving a moment's thought to the inevitable consequences.

In this final novel of an informal quartet, begun with The Other Side of The Orange Grove, If The Full Moon Loves You, Why Worry About The Stars?, and Maqam, Diego Nicari, a travel writer, makes a sojourn to Tunis in order to research his family history. Knowing his great-grandparents and grandfather once lived among the Sicilian diaspora in La Goulette, he hopes to find out as much information as possible for a book he's writing about the Nicari family. While wandering through La Goulette, he encounters a disabled boy, Oussama, who offers to play music for him. A misunderstanding lands the boy in trouble with an abusive policeman and Diego rushes to his defense. Diego can't help feeling guilty over instigating the situation and wants to make amends. A friendship develops between them. As the details of Oussama's life slowly unfolds, the more heartbroken Diego becomes, distracting him from his original plan. Meanwhile, an ambitious child protective services employee threatens Diego's plans and a mysterious photograph of Diego's great-grandfather emerges which casts a shadow of mystery over his true origins.

Set amongst the beginning of the 'Arab Spring' in Tunis, Mariam, a young musician, secludes herself away in order to compose the music she long desires to create. Having recently returned home after a failed relationship with a fellow musician at a conservatory in Paris, Mariam seeks the advice from her longtime friend and mentor Heshem, who is delighted and highly impressed with Mariam's new work. A veteran of experimental music, Heshem tries to shield Mariam from the tumult taking place on the streets around her, ignited by the suicide of a young fruit seller, and keep her out of politics and to have her focus solely on her music, despite his own involvement with a democracy movement which has drawn the attention of the authorities. Meanwhile, Mariam struggles with her relationship with her sister Sarah, a free spirited, strong willed journalist who Mariam feels never supported her as much as she should have. In this third novel of an informal quartet, begun with The Other Side of The Orange Grove and If The Full Moon Loves You, Why Worry About The Stars?, the author explores how creativity can only flourish in a free society, and Mariam's quest for creative freedom echoes the political freedom her fellow citizens now desperately seek for themselves.

1997: A brash American journalist, Claudio Nicari, and his Tunisian colleague Sarah, go on assignment to interview the elusive and secretive Omar Abbadi, the spiritual leader and 'Commander of The Faithful' of a violent Islamist group called the Algerian Islamic Front. Accompanied by their cameraman Jason and their young interpreter Rachid, they venture off to a remote Algerian village where a horrific massacre had just taken place. They are horrified by what they encounter but Abbadi's representatives have other plans. While Sarah and Jason are allowed to escape, Claudio and Rachid are taken captive and brought to the group's remote compound somewhere in the Algerian countryside. Held against their will, both Claudio and Rachid become victims of the charismatic - yet dangerous - militant who goes by the name Adem, who delights in twisted psychological games with his new captives. Up is down, black is white, and both Claudio and Rachid find themselves fighting for survival as each passing moment becomes an intolerable battle of wills.

Tunis, 1904. Ernesto Nicari, a laborer living among the Sicilian immigrant community in La Goulette, and his wife Luisa, dream of one day going to America. Unable to conceive children, they are destined to live a life together alone. Leyla is a seventeen year old Berber girl who ran away from home after refusing to marry the man that was chosen for her. Seeking protection from her cousin Houssem, who is also Ernesto's best friend, she wants to live a life of her own, make her own choices, including who to love. Now pregnant with Ernesto's child due to an ongoing illicit affair, Leyla hopes Ernesto will leave his wife in order to be with her. As Ernesto tries to keep Leyla's pregnancy secret from everyone, including Houssem, and especially Luisa, a tragic and unlikely love story unfolds, testing Ernesto's marriage, his friendship with Houssem, as well as his own morality. In this second book of an informal quartet of novels - begun with 'The Other Side Of The Orange Grove' - the author explores issues of immigration, culture, colonialism, and how sometimes dark secrets from the past will inevitably reverberate for generations to come.

Brandon and Olivia, two goth/emo kids alienated from their idyllic Long Island neighborhood, only have one another to depend on. Brandon's parents are careerists, often too busy to pay any attention to him. Olivia is dealing with her abusive mother, who often body shames her and chastises her over her appearance. While Brandon retreats into the world of death metal and Facebook, Olivia resorts to Stephen King novels and cutting. The two have been life long friends yet neither one of them can see the obvious. Brandon pines away for an Azeri girl from school and Olivia is taken by the new kid, a self-described environmentalist who has a checkered past of his own. Meanwhile, Brandon's father Carlton is harboring a dark secret, unknown to his wife and son, which will challenge his morality. Issues of aging and body image abound as the dark side of American life reveals itself in this tragicomic tale of so-called suburban respectability, where the masks we sometimes choose to wear often hide the darkest parts of our nature.

New York City, 1979. Nadja - a new immigrant from Poland, thirty years old, recently divorced, and down to her last dollar - wonders how she's going to make ends meet and care for her children. He is a thirteen year old boy, sitting alone in his bedroom listening to The Kinks, trying to draw comic books, write short stories, and noodles on his guitar as he broods over an unrequited love. Ten years later their paths cross and an unlikely relationship begins to flourish. Sixteen years her junior, the narrator tries to make sense of the situation he now finds himself in, falling in love with a much older woman. Meanwhile Nadja is coping with the difficulties in her life - her divorce, her growing children, her abject poverty, her failed relationships, her memories of communist Poland - and now she has another issue to deal with: a man sixteen years her junior who is seemingly falling in love with her. Her conflicted feelings over him only complicates matters even more. Sometimes the heart wants what it wants. This odd love story, based on an obscure folk tale, mirrors the situation they now both find themselves, with no clear answers, no clear meaning to any of it.

Sometime between President Carter's 'Malaise' and the dawn of the Reagan era, Queens, New York. A generation of mostly 'latch key kids' find themselves on their own, indulging in every vice available to them. Drugs, music, sex, it's all there for the taking, since no one is looking. It is a forgotten generation, left to its own devices, exposed to the crumbling aftermath of the 'Age of Aquarius' their elders left in their wake. Two boys in particular - the unnamed narrator and his friend Tad - navigate these changing times through drugs, sex, music, comic books, and taking a long hiatus from the nightmare of junior high school. Each morning they hang out in the woods near the local park getting high and playing games as they wait for Tad's mother to go to work so they can have the house to themselves. One morning they discover something that will terrify them and make them question the very nature of those around them.

A New York City writer hops back and forth through moments in his life. Over the course of one weekend afternoon, as he and his wife care for their newborn daughter, he tries to put the pieces together in order to figure out how he arrived at this particular moment in time. The presence of a child in his life forces him to reexamine his own with the hopes of learning something in order to protect his daughter, who he knows in the back of his mind will eventually have to face life as it is. No one is asked to be brought into this world. That choice is made by others, a realization which hovers over the entire narrative as he 'hopscotches' through his memories, unsure as to whether he will be able to shield his newborn daughter from what she will inevitably face.

Surreal flash fictions, vignettes, or perhaps dreams. Read individually, they are snapshots into the subconscious mind. Read linearly, or if one dips in wherever they so choose, a peculiar narrative begins to emerge, where pop culture, the mundane, and the horrors of contemporary existence walk hand in hand toward an unexpected - and sometimes humorous - place.

Julio returns, only this time we find him revealing a dark secret from his childhood which has affected his love life, his friendships, even his interaction with psychotherapists. Now revealing all to yet another one, he finds himself distracted by his intense attraction to her. As he navigates the labyrinth of his life, he finds himself in yet another dysfunctional relationship and being used by those he thought were his friends. In this companion piece to 'Shadows', with the action taking place somewhere between the middle and the end of the previous novel, this is a more intimate, detailed portrait of a generation seemingly sleepwalking through life.

New York City, sometime in the 1990s. On his way to a Brooklyn loft party, Julio is about to spend yet another drunken evening that will forever change him. Through a series of flashbacks, childhood and adolescent memories, fever dreams, and drunken reverie, Julio reflects on his choices in life, as well as his generation's as a whole. What had they actually achieved? His inward journey opens a Pandora's box in which he comes face to face with himself, perhaps for the first time in his life.

Marco Pazzolini always dreamed of becoming a professional musician. Just as his dream started to come true he soon discovered that it was not all he expected it to be. On the verge of popularity, he threw it all away and ran off to find peace and quiet on a small Greek island in the middle of the Mediterranean. For the next twenty years of his life he's lived a quiet, peaceful, albeit frugal existence. Then one day Marco's estranged daughter unexpectedly turns up, threatening the tranquil existence he worked so hard to cultivate.

The theater had always been a passion for the young Dante Russo. Sometimes things don't work out the way one hopes and now he finds himself married to a successful business woman and teaching drama at a specialized Manhattan high school. One day he receives the news that his friend and mentor is on his death bed. Knowing that he doesn't have much time, Dante travels to Paris to visit his dying friend. Jacques leaves Dante something special - an original manuscript of a play called 'Rhombus Denied', a production that has the distinction of never being performed in its entirety because of the riots it caused. Dante returns to New York with the idea of putting on the play as a tribute to his mentor as well as a means of getting back into what was always his first love - the theater. But times have changed and so have sensibilities and Dante finds that putting on a production of this little known French playwright may not be as easy as it seems, nor find an audience as enthusiastic about the work as he is.

A lowlife becomes obsessed with a prostitute with a unique body tattoo; A young man travels to Morocco with the idea of "disappearing" into the Sahara; Two G.I.s discover the intricacies of war; A coffee shop owner befriends a homeless poet; A dwarf stalks a Greenwich Village actress; Two aging artists bicker over the changing times in 1950's New York; A man reminisces about riding the rails during the depression; these are just a few of the stories gathered in this collection. Originally released individually as short story eBooks in 2011 - 2012, they are gathered together in one volume for the first time.

What will they do once the fire goes out? Two lifelong friends set off on their annual summer travel, a ritual since their college days. This year it's the Mediterranean, the first stop being a small village in the mountains of southern Italy, a town in which both their families hail from. They soon discover their ancestral town has one foot in the twenty first century, one foot still firmly rooted in the past, where some of the locals are still clinging to ancient folkways, vendettas, and superstitious beliefs. Something dark had taken place in the village three decades earlier and the mere arrival of the two friends sets off a chain of events that will shake this sleepy village to its very core.

Being yourself in a sea of mindless cretins is the hardest battle any kid could face. September 1982. In a working class neighborhood in Queens, New York, 16 year old Nico Razza is a perpetual outcast, often victim to the taunts of his peers, classmates, and neighborhood bullies. Steeped in Punk Rock culture, he is not only rebelling against society, authority, and his peers, but also his recently widowed father, who struggles to keep his family together in the dawn of the Reagan era. Angst ridden punk rockers; Van Halen t-shirt wearing Camaro driving bullies and their brain dead foot soldiers; Lower East Side squatters; Alphabet City junkies; Hardcore bands and the infamous A7 club; Reagan's promise of a 'Morning in America' and those left behind who still wanted to believe it; working class angst; high school confidential; when these worlds collide over the course of ten days, the lives of everyone involved will be changed forever.

What happens when an American poet, a Uruguayan painter, a Peruvian chef, a Syrian bellydancer, an Algerian musician, and an Italian religious fundamentalist cross paths as they search for meaning on the streets of Paris? 'Nader a' is the story of failed hopes, unrealized dreams, the nature of identity, and when their respective journey's do intersect, the very notion of 'meaning' suddenly gets called into question and may have potentially dire consequences.

Paris at the turn of the twenty first century. A New York City writer follows in the footsteps of his literary heroes only to discover that the reality is far from the fantasy he pursues. Falling in with a group of expatriate American students, he soon learns that things aren't much different than they are at home. When he meets Nys, a Parisian sculptor, he believes that he finally found the answer to all his problems. A tragedy is slowly unfolding but he is unable - or unwilling - to see it, and things begin to take an ominous turn when the lines between fantasy and reality become increasingly indistinguishable. The past becomes present, the present becomes past, and nothing is what it appears to be.