Bedlam: The Pale Beauty

Walking with the gods, Elias rediscovers a beautiful yet traumatic past. He was once in love, joined a dangerous Cuban revolutionary group and was left to die after bring betrayed.

Now these higher beings demand revenge but does more death give Elias a second chance at life or does it condemn him?

For fans of literary fiction and magical realism. Bedlam poetically examines the fragile soul of a man who has experienced the beauty of love and the inhumanity of those that seek power at any cost.

The debut novel spans over thirty years during three tumultuous periods in Cuban history: the Cuban revolution, the Castro dictatorship and the fall of the Soviet Union. Blending mythology with a tragic story of love and loss, Bedlam is a 77,000-word novel.

Excerpt 1:
Ignacio's cheeks rose in disgust as he knelt to leer straight into my eyes. "What are you looking at you dirty thing?"

     At that moment, I wasn't interested in engaging him, instead, I was too distracted. That strange erratic light had now come closer. The size of a baseball, the orb moved like a wild bumble bee just twenty feet away. It fluttered to and fro, up and over as it streamed across the palm trees, floor and sky. Was it a large firefly? A group of fireflies?

     Stranger yet, it seemed like I was the only one distracted by its presence. Everyone else ignored the pulsating orb while it repeatedly, and hectically, flew right past or hovered near them. At an angle above the water it suddenly stopped. The object spiraled and turned in place until it grew still. For some reason, I got the feeling that it was staring right at me.

     Eventually, I became more certain as it slowly moved in my direction.

Excerpt 2:
For you see, my muse is pink hair bouncing off the sun. Tender kisses that hum'" I love you," long after they're gone. It's a song, a beat, a rhythm. It's a butterfly that speaks pigeon in a world full of penguins. Mine is the fantastic; it's the world when it skips a beat: click, click, ti-click. And me? All I wanted was to rip you away, steal you from some beautiful reverie only to see the expression I must have had so long ago.

About the author:
A first generation American, Kurt's family emigrated from Cuba and Germany. He grew up immersed in American, Cuban and German culture. Bedlam is his first novel.