Chimera Man
by Joe Alegado
In his first novel, Chimera Man, Joe Alegado tells the story of a man and his journey towards redemption.
Preface
There was no smooth transition. One week I was teaching and choreographing a dance piece in Bratislava, Slovakia; the next week, I returned home to Budapest, Hungary, where I typed some ideas into my MacBook. With each day, I continued to build on those initial thoughts. Finally, a week later, I raised my head from the laptop screen, and I realized I had written thirty pages…
Introduction
Introduction
What if?
What if you were to wake up one day and find out the life you had been living was not what you thought it was. What if everything you had done up until the present was built on an illusion – a world within a world – a chimera.
X found himself in this place. He had no choice but to confront this world he was born into. But what he thought to be the answers to his problems turned out to be scratches on the surface of a much deeper problem. The real reasons were hidden deep within a childhood memory – a memory seemingly unconnected yet real and still painful.
It took the dreams of a little girl to awaken the link to the childhood memory hidden beneath layers of false images of what makes a man – a chimera man.
In the final moment of truth, when life confronted him with his fate, X was ready to act.
Book Reviews
“Simply put, Alegado has a gift for putting words together. But more than that, he writes with such urgency and passion that the reader is utterly compelled to read on. From the start, I was drawn in, and even when I wasn’t sure where he was going, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t stop reading.”
Eileen Valentino Flaxman
poet and author
“Alegado’s writing evokes strong images – as if I was watching a movie of the inner workings of my mind – connecting and speaking to all of my senses. I smell the wind, the sea, I hear X’s motorcycle, I taste the sun. I can relate as a woman, a sensitive creature, an artist.
This book is about trust, connection, love and forgiveness. It is honest, poetic, blunt – life changing.”
Hanna Antonia Füger
actress, writer, speaker
“Joe Alegado’s book is an intriguing and haunting novel whose central theme – looking to the past to understand, accept and embrace the future – resonates with a sublime gesture towards forgiveness. The narration is tinged with mysterious tones, at times carefree, but always to make space for moments of profound reflection.”
Cecilia Franceschelli
dancer
Excerpts
“He moved forward even though the rest of him had not caught up. With every step he took, parts of him wandered around him like zombies with no clear destination. The faint beating of his heart – like a metal detector hovering over the ground – sent out a beacon to those pieces of him straggling behind, guiding them back into him, into the memory of who he once was. In this stumbling, cubistic version of himself, he shuffled his way forward. The night had removed the connective tissue which had held him together, and now, it had left him with a dangling mass of body parts and pieces of his mind, held together with the remaining light of his survival instinct.”
Buy the Book!
Chimera Man by Joe Alegado (ebook)
€9.99
What if? What if you were to wake up one day and find out the life you had been living was not what you thought it was. What if everything you had done up until the present was built on an illusion – a world within a world – a chimera.
In his first novel, Chimera Man, Joe Alegado tells the story of a man and his journey from a past hidden in deception – to the road towards redemption.
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Download includes all popular formats: EPUB (for ebook readers and tablets), MOBI (for Amazon Kindle) and PDF (for other devices).
About the Author
Joe Alegado – storyteller
Joe Alegado – storyteller
In his dance career spanning forty-eight years, he has been dedicated to the art of storytelling through the creation of his choreographies. Now, through his writing, his storytelling continues with Chimera Man – his first novel.
The transition from dance to the written word was sudden, yet he discovered he could apply the process of creating dances to his writing. As a result, he has written one novel, one short story, and several poems in the last sixteen months. He is at the beginning of his writing career, yet the time spent as a professional dancer informs much of his writing process.
Through his writing, he hopes to connect with audiences who have followed him throughout his dance career, as well as a new audience that recognizes and appreciates the similarities between the creation of movement for choreography and the search for words that express the story being told.
In Chimera Man, he has used this process to tell the story of a man and his journey from a past hidden in deception – to the road towards redemption. In all his stories, the author wishes to describe the human condition with all its weaknesses, strengths, hopes, dreams and, in doing so, bring human emotions and stories closer to home.
Joe Alegado invites you into his journey as a writer.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
To Eileen Valentino Flaxman, whose words of advice from a seasoned writer to a novice served as a guiding force through this new world of writing.
To Pat and Tom Chodosh – my sister and brother-in-law – for their love and support and their medical advice used for the book.
To my sister Gloria Esquivel, for her love and support and for buying me the MacBook I used for writing this book.
To Hanna Antonia Füger, for being the first person to read the initial draft and giving me the confidence of feeling I had something to say. And equally as important, for being the unsuspecting inspiration behind Hanna.
To Helga Fischer, Klaus Huber, Christoph Kodera, and Christian Lacher, for believing in me as a writer and a friend.
To Katarina Vlnieskova, for always being there. I am also grateful to her for introducing me to Aran Keaton, who connected me to her author and aunt, Eileen Valentino Flaxman.
To Cecilia Franceschelli, for reading the almost-final draft and sharing her honest, heartfelt opinions with me.
To Ivan Angelus and the Budapest Contemporary Dance Academy, for their support as well as their generosity in sharing their dance space with me. Being able to go to the studio and dance created an excellent counterbalance to the sedentary life of writing.
To Blanka Flóra Csasznyi, for her very good eye, her color and design choices used in the website, and for her overall social media savvy.
To PD Dr. Vera Barrera, for sharing her expertise in the area of forensic medicine, trauma surgery and orthopaedics.
To Dénes Csasznyi, for his inspirational sculpture – The Warrior – used for the book cover.
To Karl Regensburger – director of ImPulsTanz Festival Vienna – for his friendship and support during our thirty-seven-year collaboration.
To baby Szonja Csasznyi, for being Szonja – the muse behind one of the book’s integral characters.
Contact
For comments on the novel or simply drop Joe a line.