Paperback: $35.
Zapinette lives with her mother, a staunch ‘felinist’who owns a beauty parlor in Paris, as well as with Firmin, the latter’s boyfriend. The girl however feels much closer to her ‘Unky Berky’, in spite of the fact that he is “such a weirdo at times and can get on her bloomin nerves”. Through Firmin, ‘the vermin’, she learns that her beloved uncle is a ‘homey setchual’. They will travel to four continents together and the trips promise to be quite bumpy. She is part American, part French, part Italian and finds out, along her journeys to Africa and the Holy Land, that she has other origins too.
THE LITERARY REVIEW: “... Be warned, Zapinette's gems of insouciant wit tend to become infectious. This wise-child's deceptively worldly innocence takes the entire gamut of human endeavor in its compass. Hardly anyone or anything escapes unscathed. Michael Jackson,Vittorio de Sica, Freddy Mercury, Mao Zedong, Bill and Hill, the Pope, Fidel Castro, and even Jesus of Nazareth all come under Zapinette's delightfully zany fire as she "zaps" from topic to topic in an irrepressible flux. As the century of the double zeros is with us - 2016 -, we have seen the future and the future is sham. As a healthy dose of counter-sham, Zapinette should be on every brain-functional person's reading list.”
WORLD LITERATURE TODAY
“... This book is a great ramble, rather like a chapterless Montaigne popping from one subject to the next, drawing connections no one else would ever have thought of, but with Groucho Marx, say, passing on hints over the writer’s shoulder as to how to go about it. We readers chuckle along and even burst out laughing as we advance through this hilarious book, but we gather, we too willy-nilly, the serious messages underlying the frolicking bounce and jocular mode of the writing.”
SMALL PRESS REVIEW:
“ ... The narrator of Albert Russo’s new novel, Zapinette, is a little girl of our time, very knowledgeable about the outside world, but also enormously ignorant of the language commonly used about it, and, as a result, very funny. Her phonetic transcriptions of what she hears and her malapropisms make of her a powerfully distorting lens but, strangely enough, also a reliable witness. Albert Russo has thankfully spared us all the clichés of the genre, and what we read in his novel is a genuine portrait of a genuine child.”
This book which also appeared in the author’s own French translation and was favorably compared to Raymond Queneau’s masterpiece ZAZIE DANS LE METRO, has been discussed at the Catholic University of Paris. It was also offered to the one million subscribers of French Cable Television.
Excerpt
from Holyland Zapinette:
An evening in old Jaffa
«How would you like to spend the evening in Old Jaffa with me? I could introduce you to a couple of artist friends who share a studio there.» Miki offered, looking at me then at my uncle.
Before we could say boo, his mother cut in:
«Are you talking about Shanty the punk and Mahmood the conjuror? They’re still living together? A strange pair they make, those two!»
«Oh Ima (‘Mum’ in Hebrew)», Miki responded, lifting his two arms in a gesture that expressed at once respect and determination, coz this guy had incredibly good manners for a soldier, «this is the twenty-first century, and furthermore, they both are very talented in their specialty.»
«Yes indeed!» answered Yaloni, with an exaggerated squint, «the girl is full of sophisticated piercings, one dangling from her nostril, almost reaching her mouth, another one hanging from her chin, which make her look like some kind of Hindu goddess, and if that wasn’t enough, she has two of them stuck at the tip of her tongue and high up in her ears; where else, I don’t dare ask. As for Wahala Mahmood, apart from pulling prozacked rabbits from his hat, he paints the weirdest faces, no, not like Picasso or Van Dongen - did he have his limbs in the right place with a name like that? -, all dismembered and squashed, they’re figurative all right. He tattoos their foreheads and cheeks with bleeding stars of David and Islamic crescents, and if you look closely enough, you realize that they’re fighting, yes, fighting, you heard me right. I wonder if those two, even if she is a gothik renegade Jewess and he a non-practicing fatwa’d Muslim - that’s what he claims to be; a fatwa is the punishment meted by them bearded mollahs to Muslims who don’t pray five times a day and act like us Infidels -, aren’t plotting a terror attack together.»
«Imaaa, what are you saying!» countered Miki, «If that was their intention, they would have done it during the second Intifada, years ago.»
For you, politically illiterate ninnies, Intifada means Palestinian uprising against the Israeli army. But the more I learn about the ongoing feud between these two peoples living in this tiny area, the more I start sweating, coz everybody you speak to over here believes there will never be any peace, on account that both sides maintain that the other one is dead wrong. There must be a Yasser Bin Mandela and a Solomon Ben Gandhi somewhere in the neighborhood - leave your hiding place, you two, and do your friggin job, for Chrisssake, yeah, I’m also talking to you, Jeeezuuus, get a move on, for crying out loud, where have YOU been all this time? As for you, God the Father Christmas, I’m sure you’ve been messing around with all them pagan goddesses, instead of looking after your people, so why the hell did you choose them? Force these two peaceniks to do their coming out lest the place falls to pieces and gets riddled with holes like that stinking Swiss cheese you forgot in the pantry last year! This can’t go on indefinitely! The Palestinians claim that the Jews stole their land - which is a half lie, since much of it was bought from private Arab folks, and yeah, many others were expelled -, while the Israelis claim that the land has been lived in by Jews since the days of the Bible - which is half a truth, coz there were just a few stray Jewish cats during all those centuries and perhaps a couple of dogs too - and that Jerusalem, with its First and Second Temples (in ruin - you just have to see how often Jews wail in front of that Western Wall) on whose mount the Muslims built their beautiful - whoah, mag ni fi cent - Golden mosque, is the center of Judaism, proven by them Dead Sea scrolls which were rescoopcitated sixty years ago by a poor Beduin, whereas it is only Islam’s third or fourth holy site. Jeezette, how many holy sites do they have around the world? Is that why the Sunni hate the Shia and vice versa and bomb each other’s mosques? Holy Shiiit is what I say!
Miki took us to a coffee shop in old Jaffa called Napoleon, maybe he wanted to honor us, since we live in France. Old Napo freed the Jews of Europe from their ghettos, giving them the same rights the Christians had, after two-thousand years of Jew-bashing, when Jesus, Jeezette, Jacko, their brother, the Virgin (lol ... lol ... lol) Mary and her hubby Joey were all kosherized Jews! and he even tried to conquer Palestine. To mislead his enemies, Napoleon dressed like an Arab sheik and wore a turban, then when he came near them, he shouted: «In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful» and so fork an ding dong, but the Mamluks - they were an army of slaves who had their own generals - weren’t fooled and they stopped him before he could reach Jerusalem. He lost that war and thousands of French soldiers with it. But before that he had the time to visit Jaffa, Gaza and Haifa ... no, not as a tourist, you nitwit! You think I’m talking bunk. Open your history books, damn it!
My uncle tells me that I’ll get a fatwa if I keep saying ‘damn’ this and ‘damn’ that, on account that there are Islamists spying on some street corners, specially in Jerusalem. What’s friggin freedom of expreshun for, damn it! I’ll cuss as much as I want and no chadored Mamluk - them bozos who adore their enslaved women to be cloaked from head to toe -, Haredim with spaghetti hair or Pigvangelists who seem to be born with a mike hooked to their tongue, will stop me. My ancestors haven’t invented the French Revolution for the dogs, coz if that were the case, we would be ruled by French poodles, chihuahas, and dobermistresses.
So here we were at the café in Ole Jaffa, me, clutched between sexy Miki and dreamy Unky Berky, sitting opposite Shanty and Mahmood, the two dragabushkins we were told about earlier, coz she, apart from all the stalactites dangling from her skinny tips, like she was a walking altar, had cheeks dabbed with torero red, so glaring that you needed sunglasses, while her Palestinian boyfriend had circles of purple day glo around his eyes and a zillion little sequins dotting his face and his fluffed-up hair, as if he’d just come out of a jacuzzi bath full of mercury or, since I’m supposed to be a powetess too, as if he’d fallen off the star-spangled firmament.
I don’t know whether it was the sight of these two which made my uncle look so stoned or whether he was fantasizing being himself a maverick, with the hope of joining them in a freak triangle, but I was getting a little worried for him. To be sure he got down back to reality, I pinched his left buttock. He squealed with a very piggish sound, so I was relieved.
«Oh, what a lovely voice you have!» said Mahmood, whistling in appreciation, and he blinked like a daft puppet. «I woudn’t be surprised if you sang professionally or that you were part of a choir. Could you give us a taste of your talent?»
Jeezette, what next! And gap-toothed Shanty who added on cue in broken, very broken French:
«Oui, oui, nous vouloir toi chanter!»
«Indeed,» Miki chimed in, «how about a Jacques Brel song, like ‘Ne me quitte pas’?»
Where had I landed, amid a bunch of screwballs, including now our hunk of a host? Or were these people typical of this country, once they left the army, even just for the weekend? Coz I learned that Shanty too had served a couple of years as a soldieress, under much duress. As for grinning Mahmood, being an Arab citizen, he was not allowed to join the Israeli military, on account that he might spy for the enemy and give strategic clues to the terrorists.
«Whoah ... sss ... jjj!» I whooshed. That’s what I do when I get flummoxed and can’t find my words, but it proves quite efficient, coz people stare back at me open-mouthed then totally flabbyghosted, like they were the ones who did something wrong. «Now, let’s not get excited,» I was finally able to udder, «my uncle doesn’t know how to sing at all. If Jacques Brel ever heard him so much as try to imitate him, he would rescoopcitate from his Polynesian grave, bones and all, and smack Unky Berky on his friggin head». Yeah, I know, it’s not my uncle’s fault, but better warn everybody at the same time, if you don’t want to have leaks.
The pair in front of us looked at me like I was the crazy one, not they. Well I never, so sayeth Shake ‘m Pears. And you should have seen Bonka’s expression, he looked like I had flogged him the way the Iranian mollars punish teenaged transgressors. Under that Mamluk regime young girls get flogged if they’re found wearing jeans under their mosquito-net cassocks, the poor dudesses. And of course, in this case I feel like twisting my uncle’s nose and both his ears, coz he loooves to show strangers what an underdog he is, specially after he gets scolded - by me, who else? Then, to win back my affection, he gives me that slavish labrador look which almost breaks my heart. Drivelling nincompoop that he is.
To break that poofy atmosphere, I turned towards Miki and asked him if we could go to one of them trendy nightclubs mentioned in Time Out magazine after dinner.
«Of course, Zapy,» answered the sweety pie - I felt like squeezing his cute lil chin and smooch him on the cheek, but I didn’t want to pass for a clot. «I’ll take you to the best one, where we might come across some famous people from this country and even from abroad. The bouncer looks like an enraged gorilla, but don’t worry, he’s a buddy and always lets me in, along with my guests, even those he’s never seen before.»
Our pair of freaky chums started to clap their hands all the while my uncle was shifting his backside on his chair, and making squeaky noises on account that he wanted to intervene.
He gave an unwanted fart, immediately followed by a boorish roar, which is totally unexpected from such a delicate and pussy-mouseyed guy. But I knew what it meant.
«Ahem ... er... grrr» he insisted, half barking, so that the audience paid attention. «Isn’t Zapy too young for such ... er ... a place? She’s not even thirteen you know.»
I cast him such a dirty look that he had to turn his gaze above my head, like he was suddenly staring at a bloomin fly.
«The lassie is as tall as I am, no one will see the age difference, specially inside the nightclub where the lights are dimmed!» said Shanty with a funny smile - was she jealous of me, the midget, or was it a compliment? I still can’t figure it out.
«Don’t you worry Bonky,» said Miki reassuringly - I repressed a laugh, coz it was the first time I had heard someone call him that, and it rhymed with ... donkey, which served him right -,«we’re quite open-minded in this city you know, and in any case people behave where I’m taking you. It’s pretty kosher. Zoopy will be like a fish in the sea there.»
«Hey, Mooky Nooky Tushy yourself,» I retorted, trying to squint and blink at the same time, «you do have a problem with names in this country,» I grumbled hoarsely, like a school principal who’d had too many cocktails, addressing all and sundry around the table, «either you call me Esmeralda, as it is written on my passport, or Esmée, Zapinette too, if you insist, orrr Zapy, but no other donkey names, ok!»
Mahmood started to giggle and to shake like a bloomin camel that’s found a water hole in an oasis, after having trotted ten days in the desert, and soon everybody guffawed, including Bonka. After telling myself that I shouldn’t be a killjoy, I joined in the most stupid laughter this side of the Negev. Jeezette, what baboons we are!
In order to make me pass for a young adult, Shanty applied some of her own makeup on my face. The moment I saw myself in the compact mirror she lent me, I almost jumped out of my skin, on account that I looked like a ventriloquist’s puppet, or worse, like Nina Hagen’s baby sister, a real witch, with all that mascara, the layers of rouge on the cheeks and the black lines surrounding my eyes. My mum would have had a heart attack seeing me like this. But, low and bee hold, my Israeli buddies thought I was a stunner. Unky Berky looked stunned all right, only in his case I was afraid he would swallow his tongue forever, coz he could hardly recognize his darling lil niece. So as to avoid that such an accident should occur, I asked Miki to order a triple gin and tonic for my uncle, whether he liked it or not, I know how to put my foot down in situations of emergency.
I won’t tell you about my experience at that nightclub, except that both my uncle and I came out of it completely deaf and bleary-eyed. How can people enjoy all them decibels for so many hours? I hate techno music, oh yeah I hate it with all my guts, and I don’t care if that’s what my generation goes for. It’s the kind of noise that can give an elephant instant diarrhea, let alone make its tiny eyes pop out of their socks and turn its jumbo ears into two overgrown lettuces that have suddenly become all whitered and floppy, on account of an unexpected heatwave, which here they call Hamsin. Hey, did you notice something about this word? Do I have to remind you that Jews and Muslims consider that to eat ham is a sin? And therefore God punishes the would-be offenders with a hellish wind that blows from the Sahara, which then hops over Egypt and the Sinai, before it finally hits these parts.
Like I said before, in these here biblical lands there are so many do’s and don’t’s that you are a sinner even before you are born, the worst four-letter word being SINS, yes in plural, on account of all the stations of your afterlife - in case you are Christian - that can start in limbo, if you die without being baptised, then comes purgatory, if your sins on earth weren’t so serious, like throwing a stray cat in a dustbin, without killing it, like that English mum who mistook a flea-bitten pussy for some dirty plush toy. And then comes the devil’s may-care kingdom, which all the fanatics of this planet promise you will go to, on account of all them do’s and don’t’s, which you pretend you keep confusing.
Poor New Yorkers, poor Las Vegans, who are supposed to live in SIN cities. And yeah, I love both places, sin or no sin! Either God had an upset stomach or a terrible fight with his wife, or was it with his concubine, or with his mistress, when he let folks build these cities? Coz you think God had no one by his side? And gorgeous-looking Jesus, he didn’t have a companion you think? Hey I never said he was gay, he might have been ... What? Blasphemy? ... bla bla bla yourself! Jeezette, what these monks have us believe is such a load of bullshit - they probably have descended from the branch of Middle-Eastern monkeys -, telling us that you can love your soulmate only if you wish to marry him and so fork and ding dong, and the same old stories all over again.
Long live ole Madonna full of profanity and spastic Lady Gaga and disheveled Britney Spears and hunky dory Ricky Martin who came out last year, admitting he was gay gay gay, and the late Freddy Mercury who rubbed his thing in front of all and sundry and Michael Jackson who made the same shameless gestures, only in his case I think he looked much more handsome before he went to them plastic surgeons who transformed him in to E.T.’s brother or was it his sister-in-law, I’m not sure which. Then there’s that famous French DJ David Guetta and his wife who attract the BOPs (body-fulla-odor people, who dance all night long till the wee wee hours of the morning, without changing clothes or washing themselves, and probably peeing in their pants as they thrust their legs every which way) like bees around a honeycomb. What would we do without these fabulous talents and their divine music, fer chrisssake!
Professional Reviews
The Gosh Zapinette series by Albert Russo
THE LITERARY REVIEW:
“... Be warned, Zapinette's gems of insouciant wit tend to become infectious. This wise-child's deceptively worldly innocence takes the entire gamut of human endeavor in its compass. Hardly anyone or anything escapes unscathed. Michael Jackson,Vittorio de Sica, Freddy Mercury, Mao Zedong, Bill and Hill, the Pope, Fidel Castro, and even Jesus of Nazareth all come under Zapinette's delightfully zany fire as she "zaps" from topic to topic in an irrepressible flux. As the century of the double zeros is with us + 2016 -, we have seen the future and the future is sham. As a healthy dose of counter-sham, Zapinette should be on every brain-functional person's reading list.”
The Gosh Zapinette series by Albert Russo
WORLD LITERATURE TODAY:
“... This series is a great ramble, rather like a chapterless Montaigne popping from one subject to the next, drawing connections no one else would ever have thought of, but with Groucho Marx, say, passing on hints over the writer’s shoulder as to how to go about it. We readers chuckle along and even burst out laughing as we advance through this hilarious book, but we gather, we too willy-nilly, the serious messages underlying the frolicking bounce and jocular mode of the writing.”
The Gosh Zapinette series by Albert Russo
SMALL PRESS REVIEW:
“ ... The narrator of Albert Russo’s Zapinette series, is a little girl of our time, very knowledgeable about the outside world, but also enormously ignorant of the language commonly used about it, and, as a result, very funny. Her phonetic transcriptions of what she hears and her malapropisms make of her a powerfully distorting lens but, strangely enough, also a reliable witness. Albert Russo has thankfully spared us all the clichés of the genre, and what we read in his novel is a genuine portrait of a genuine child.”
Yankee Doodle Daddy is a historical Appalachian Family Saga. The story follows a mother's reckoning as she struggles to survive and keep her four daughters alive.
Exploring the impact of literary icon Flannery O'Connor's noted legacy on the cultural realities of modern-day America, the world, and a certain author.
Yankee Doodle Daddy is a historical Appalachian Family Saga. The story follows a mother's reckoning as she struggles to survive and keep her four daughters alive.
