Sunday 22 October 2017, 4pm-5pm: Old Capitol Books is pleased to welcome local author J.T. Westfield who will be signing copies of his books Eye Contact: The Book of Helga and CutThroat.
Who: Local author, J.T. Westfield
When: Sunday 22 October 2017, 4pm-5pm
About Eye Contact: The Book of Helga
This is the true story of Helga Wallnau Burch as told to J.T. Westfield about her harrowing escape from the SS in Berlin during November of 1938. As a thirteen year old child, Helga moves from safe house to safe house, evading Nazi officers, and ending up in a gambling house in Brussells. The will be a multimedia presentation, with video from the original interview between Helga and Westfield.
About CutThroat
First person narrator Thomas Krieg is thrown into a tenuous living situation with a slightly older couple as he attempts to transfer from California to Cornell University in upstate New York. It’s 1973 and they are all in their early twenties. Finding himself unavoidably attracted to the wife, Krieg is basically helpless when they have their first kiss in the opening pages. He then backs up to explain events leading up to the “Kiss of No Return”, then ends up leaving Cornell to follow his married love out to Arizona. They are eventually joined by her husband and at first attempt to conceal the extent of things. Following a ski resort job up in Utah, Krieg tries half-heartedly to bail out of the triangle but finds he is too deeply attracted to Caitlin. She in turn believes she can love both Krieg and her husband equally. Over the course of several pot-smuggling episodes the triangle continues to warp and twist as Miller learns his wife truly loves another man in the full sense of the word. There follows a camping trip deep into Mexico where a scheme is hatched to cross the border with a spare gas tank full of weed. The ensuing climax at the border is a life-crossroads type scene where one man’s destiny plays out on another’s. The title is derived from a three-handed variation of Pinochle, which the couple teach the narrator to play. But the game of love deals them each a different hand. The story locales shift from woodsy New York state out to the deserts of Arizona and dip slightly into the social mysteries of Mexican subculture around Mazatlán.
About the author
Born in 1953, the author grew up in San Francisco from age seven on. Educated by Jesuits at St. Ignatius Prep., he went on to study geography and political science at Utah University and San Diego State.
Shunning both teaching and government service the author held a variety of positions including state beach lifeguard, professional carpet cleaner, ceramic tile setter and finally, waiter at ultra-private golf club in Pebble Beach, that one lasting over 17yrs. (subject of work still in progress).
We are currently celebrating the 20 yr. anniversary printing of “CutThroat”, 70’s love triangle novel, and the 10 yr. anniversary printing of “Eye Contact”, the true account of now 92 yr. old Helga Burch a hidden child in the Nazi times. We’ve published five books over 20 years. “Parallel Worlds” 2006 (A young San Franciscan falls for a French transfer student and winds up writing a movie about it fifteen years hence). “Water People” 2010 (a 90’s swim team reunion occasions a tragic death and results in the discovery of a manuscript revealing heretofore intimate secrets). “Fred Easterbrook” (the fictionalized account of author’s grandfather, his exploits with cannibals in the Solomon Islands while a German seaman, his personal battles with naval officers on board, his eventual flight from duty with his true love to New York City where they join a vaudeville troupe with George Burns).
Additionally the author has written a one-man stage play entitled ‘An Evening with the Ghost of the Lizard King’ which details the career and demise of Jim Morrison, much maligned lead singer of the Doors musical group. A true victim of the Florida judicial system JDM was possibly the most dangerous poet of the 20th century. This piece clues you in.
Old Capitol Books 