Available Summer, 2016 Coerte V. W. Felske, noted Zeitgeist chronicler of the skin-deep and shameless age, flits, flaps, stretches wings, and struts with his fifth novel, The Ivory Stretch (The Dolce Vita Press, 2016). Frenetic, bedazzling, idiosyncratic, and uniquely original this wild ride of a narrative showcases protagonist Billy Sixkiller who seizes the reader's imagination and forces him to gaze into the heart of the American psyche in the great tradition of Twain, Kerouac, Kesey, and McCarthy. Through Billy, the author launches a revenge tale steeped in the Native American ethos to create a vivid snapshot of conflicted 21st Century America. "Billy Six"--a modern-day Odysseus if not Moses himself--is a larger-than-life anti-hero who takes dispirited road companions on an adventure of a lifetime of his own design, a postmodern Vision Quest of spiritual renewal. Billy slices through the breathtaking settings of the Southwest in a supercharged white limousine, blasting wide the eyes of his unsuspecting roadies--the Parisian orphaned Frenchy and his suicidal captive Roland. Billy kidnaps the dead-souled novelist for a past crime, but a curious relationship develops between the two which is the beating heart of the story. The emotionally recessive prisoner develops an amorous bond with spiritually-starved Frenchy, Billy's former lover. This shifting three-way and unlikely clashing of personalities and intimate motivations staves off predictability and the narrative surprises the reader at every turn. When the trio take to the highway in the stretch limo the novel comprises one of the great road trips found in American literature with echoes of Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways, Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Thompson's Fear and Loathing. Dramatic ironies compound as the charismatic, dazzlingly unpredictable Billy, seeking to avenge the murder of his parents, ends up giving his emotionally voided prisoner a new appreciation for life. Billy hauls him across deserts and Indian lands for five sleep-deprived days to peel away a lifetime's layers of anguish and blow the winds of life back into the man's lungs. Perceptive though manipulated, profane yet sacred, gentlemanly but diabolical, and like a bomb going off in a fireworks factory, Billy explodes onto the page spouting his artillery of language like shrapnel. His prescient and irreverent rants border on the Whitmanesque and his outlaw spirit embodies the journeying aspect of the American character; a contemporary equivalent of the searchers in Kerouac's On the Road and Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion. The sexy-feisty Frenchy is another full-bodied personage who evolves before our eyes. Simultaneously thrilling, noirish, crackling and detouring, the electric prose masterfully seasoned with philosophies, historical asides, tribal customs, diaries, and individual paths to enlightenment gives the tome a hightened reality while remaining true to the enchanting milieu of L'Amour and sensibilities of McCarthy to forge a new kind of western. Felske, who previously lasered in on fast lane culture, has gone lyrical, poetic, even classic here, with his boldest and most significant work. The author transports his eye for detail on a different kind of "dolce vita" that is equally sweet but twice as spicy. Like a gun barrel to the back, The Ivory Stretch forces the reader to contemplate the vulgar and divine, entwining sex, lyricism, violence, and spirituality to inspire deeper epiphanies. With its author's mythic vision of a desert death trip that transforms into something more life-affirming, TIS claims its place in the American literary tradition and Billy Sixkiller joins the pantheon of great fictional character creations. Evoking whispers of some of literature's finest, TIS sets the imagination ablaze with an unforgettable, high-octane, adrenaline rush ride which haunts the psyche well after the story's climactic conclusion. An author's literary triumph indeed.

The Ivory Stretch

Literature & Fiction

Felske, Coerte V.W.

Literary

Dolce Vita Press, The

<p>The Author's Cut : WITH 80 PAGES OF SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: author interviews, magazine reviews, press items and releases, done in scrapbook format ... On the front and back covers: Adriana Lima photographed by Ellen von Unwerth."Chandler for the 90s: (*****) Word is pure 40s cool and paragraphs swing with voiceover rhythms that put Harrison Ford's Blade Runner monologues to shame. Beautiful babes, New York wasps and sleazy zillionaires flit through Word, larger than life and twice as interesting.- Carrie O'Grady, The Guardian (England)"A torrent of L.A. buzzwords and insider cynicism unmatched since Odets and Lehman's Sweet Smell of Success took on Manhattan. The Hell-A hypechat will flick all of your fuses."- Kirkus Reviews "Flashy and dark, this energetic Nathanael West retake offers a rich Hollywood menu of pandering, ambition, power, and retribution."- Publishers Weekly "Magnificent Obsessions: Word, the book Bret Ellis didn't write, is Felske's satire of Hollywood, i.e., 'Star Camp, ' and he does a great job with female movie colony characters."- Playboy"The Shallow Man turned fashion on its head bringing the term 'modelizer' into the collective conscious. With tough-talking Word, Felske is back, red-eyeing it over Tinseltown's turf."- Detour"By page 3 of this sharp send-up of all things Hollywood, you'll be patting yourself on the back for having discovered Word before Variety announces its arrival at a theater near you."- Marie Claire"If We Gave Out Book Awards: Edgiest Boy, Word.. Felske's anti-hero hilariously manages to find some beating hearts inside the hippest Hollywood hyphenates."- Glamour"Word belongs to the growing genre of Hollywood novels in which idealistic filmmakers experience disillusionment and con artists and charlatans occupy the positions of power."- USA Today"Word is winningly told, with often ferocious humor, including a fresh, funny argot. Recommended for fiction collections."- Library Journal"A vicious story of the movie-driven anathema of depth that is L.A, Felske's tale about aching for success and the price of achieving it will remind you why you live in Northern California."- San Francisco Metropolitan"Word, is a jazzy, ironic appreciation of writing, filmmaking, and chasing skirt. In two of those arts, at least, downtown novelist Coerte V.W. Felske seems more than passingly adept."- New York Magazine"The word on Word is all good."- "Page Six," The New York Pos</p>

Word: 15th Anniversary Edition

The AUTHOR'S CUT: WITH 150 PAGES OF SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL--author interviews, the original "Goldiggers" article commissioned by Esquire, cover tries, press items, and feature reviews, done in scrapbook format ... On the front and back covers: Alessandra Ambrosio photographed by Raphael Mazzucco. “How to Catch a Man at the Century’s End: A face-to-face with ‘diggers,’ women who troll resorts in search of millionaires. We know that women like this exist, but until now we didn’t have all the gory details. Bo is charming and the book is hilarious and sympathetic.” — The New York Times Book Review “The Millennium Girl skillfully takes us through the marriage market of the new millennium. Felske is the real thing: He knows his territory, and he writes about it with wit and style.” — Vogue “The resourceful Felske’s latest topic is gold diggers, the sweet lovelies more shark-like than Anita Loos’s or Truman Capote’s and the author laces every page with a masterful cynicism.” — Kirkus Reviews “Based on a magazine article Felske wrote about young women hustling in Aspen, The Millennium Girl, is snappy fun, a box of candy wrapped up with a black latex bow.” — Booklist “A strong follow-up to his previous, Word, Felske uses his trademark insight and detail to peer into the lives of sassy, sad women and their encounters with the richest. A complete hoot, sexy, hard to put down, it’s 100 percent fun, and recommended for all fiction collections.” — Library Journal “In The Millennium Girl, pulse-of-the-Zeitgeist author Coerte Felske sets his sights on ‘Diggers,’ the globe-trotting hotties on the hunt for ‘Walletmen,’ the ultra-rich men of their dreams.” — Detour “Who are these lit It Girls?The Millennium Girl. ‘I’m not a hooker but I do live off men,’ says Bodicea. I wanted to hate her, but she was too shameless and too hilariously over-the-top.” — Mademoiselle “Felske’s cleverly describes the art of the gold-digger and the folly of their prey. Bo invents cute nicknames for the Diggers and acidic jibes at upper-class hypocrisy, good for chuckles.” — Publishers Weekly  “Great fun and more than a racy rehash of Pretty Woman, Felske covered the ‘digger’ scene in an article for Esquire and clearly knows the turf. Female empowerment, a having-it-all ending, a pampered husband-hunter, and a flaming gay sidekick perpetuate these pages.” — Entertainment Weekly “Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the year 2000. A totally titillating read.” — Woman’s Own “Bodicea is possessed of a wry sense of humor and eye for detail and she sympathetically picks apart her own insecurities and those of fellow Diggers. Once again, Felske expertly maps the morally dubious interiors of characters who live on a razor’s edge of scruples.” — The Southampton Press

The Millennium Girl: 15th Anniversary Edition: 15th Anniversary Edition

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Books by Dolce Vita Press, The

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The Ivory Stretch

Word: 15th Anniversary Edition

The Millennium Girl: 15th Anniversary Edition: 15th Anniversary Edition