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The Danbury Chronicles offers a rust belt magic realism tale of a snowy Thanksgiving weekend, in Buffalo NY, 1969. Twelve-year-old Patrick Barry, his talkative reflection providing constant commentary and advice, navigates his working-class neighborhood with his combative brother. Through a darkly comic lens we see glimpses of his world: the survival strategies of adults around him, a fierce dog’s bizarre funeral orchestrated by two damaged WWII vets, and a legendary football game, where the Bills beat the Cincinnati Bengals in a blizzard.
Timothy Schmand left Buffalo to join a wagon train and settled in South Florida in 1982. His fiction, though rooted in reality, never strays far from an imagined world where a hole dug in the ground might lead to China. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals, popular magazines and anthologies. His novels Just Johnson: The London Delivery and The True Tales of Bad Benny Taggart, are published by Jitney Books.
The Danbury Chronicles is a vivid snapshot of a working-class community revealing the poignant humor and stark realities of growing up amidst life's absurdities. The world is both bleak and beautiful in a gritty coming-of-age story set in a wonderful time in America, 1969. Timothy Schmand’s The Danbury Chronicles is a literary treat. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!
—J.J. Colagrande, author of Reduce Heat Continue to Boil and Decò.
Timothy Schmand is a bricklayer of words and what he builds in "The Danbury Chronicles" is a neighborhood both solid and shimmering. As they teeter on the cusp of the adult world, Patrick and Chas Barry's Thanksgiving weekend in 1969 Buffalo is as hard as the frozen dog turds of Danbury Avenue's sidewalks and as magical as the local cur, Petey, dressed up in Christmas lights and set out in the yard after a questionable demise. Kids in the street playing hockey deliver smart-ass comebacks for every insult life throws at them, a talent the adults have honed as well. Adults operating with motives barely concealed to readers remain inscrutable to the brothers who are still learning the ways of the world they will soon enter. For the moment, they are mired in the funk of teen sweat, model airplane glue, the smoke of their mother's cigarettes and the Seagram's she shares with her "friends." After hitchhiking to the Buffalo Bills' game to save pocket change for hot dogs, the brothers separate and experience both the loveliness of wishes granted, and the devastation of favors forever withheld.
—Janet Bohac author of Evidence of the Outer World
Like all the great ones, The Danbury Chronicles will haunt you and linger and resonate long after you turn the last page. It’s one of those books—and everyone who loves novels knows this feeling—that you want to race to finish and yet you fight to make yourself slow down because you don’t want it to end. TIMOTHY SCHMAND is a wonderful writer and he’s written the kind of novel you end up buying several times because you keep giving it as a present. Moving, lyrical, and unflinchingly honest, The Danbury Chronicles is one of the best books I’ve read in years.
—Rob Roberge, author of the memoir LIAR
Timothy Schmand was born in Buffalo, New York. He spent his early years pursuing adventures in the vacant lot behind his house. The lot’s pond became the Mississippi; cement-mixing tubs passed for Huck’s raft. Schmand and his comrades constructed elaborate tree houses with materials liberated from construction sites and, on more than one occasion, began digging holes to China.
While pursuing his B.A. in Political Science, Schmand ran boilers and swept floors in Buffalo Public Schools. In 1979, he moved to the woods and built his own cabin. Cabin complete, he began hitchhiking around North America. Schmand eventually earned his B.A. from SUNY Buffalo State and, later, an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College. As an adult Schmand worked on a wagon train as a counselor for troubled children, edited popular and scholarly magazines, managed museums, public parks, sports authorities and business improvement districts.
Schmand’s fiction, though rooted in reality, never strays far from an imagined world where a hole dug in the ground might lead to China. His work has appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies, alongside writers as diverse as Charles Bukowski and John Updike, earned honors including the Calvino Prize for Short Fiction. His novels “Just Johnson: The London Delivery” (which the Huffington Post called a ‘funny, fast-paced spy thriller’) and “The True Tales of Bad Benny Taggart,” published by Jitney Books, are available where books are sold. Schmand is a certified yoga instructor. He lives and writes in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Book Information:
· Paperback: 194 pages
· Binding: Perfect-Bound
· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books]
· ISBN: 978-1-60964-518-2
$22
