"Scenario for Scorsese"

a novel by

E. M. Schorb

Cover by Brenda Pinnell

Copyright ©2000
ISBN: 0-87714-569-5 eBook edition
ISBN: 0-87714-735-3 PB edition

All rights reserved by Denlinger's Publishers, including the right to reproduce this electronic book, or portions thereof, in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

His stories and poems have appeared in: The American Scholar; The Antigonish Review (Canada); The Beloit Poetry Journal; The Carolina Quarterly; The Chattahoochee Review; Chelsea; The Chicago Review; The Dark Horse (Scotland); Dramatists Guild Quarterly; The Formalist; Frank (France); Gallery (England); The Hollins Critic; Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine; The Kansas Quarterly; Keats Prize Poems (London Literary Editions, Ltd.); The Laurel Review, The Massachusetts Review; Negative Capability; New Letters; The New Welsh Review (Wales); Outposts (England); Outrider (Australia); Painted Bride Quarterly; Poetry Northwest; Prism International (Canada); Puerto Del Sol; Queen's Quarterly (Canada); The Roanoke Review; The Sewanee Review; The Southern Review; The Southern Humanities Review; The Southern Poetry Review; The Southwest Review; Stand (England); The Texas Review; The Wascana Review (Canada); Whiskey Island Magazine; The William and Mary Review; The Windsor Review (Canada); Writers Forum; The Xavier Review; and The Yale Review, among others.

Grants and Awards include:

Senior Fellowship in Literature, The Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center
Regional Artist Project Grant, North Carolina Arts Council
Fellowship in Literature, North Carolina Arts Council
Carnegie Fund for Authors
The Dramatists Guild
The Authors League Fund
Mystery Writers of America
The Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation

This title was nominated for the Frankfurt eBook Awards.

There was a young priest who stalked the pornographic night of the X-rated movie houses and the prostituting streets outside them in what had become a sexual compulsion. Sometimes he felt that he had lost all control of himself and with that loss his very soul. But his soul was saved through the confession of his sins and their forgiveness by a fellow priest who was not his own publicly acknowledged confessor but a fellow sinner, an older priest who had had a twenty-year quasi-marriage and who would in turn ask the young priest for absolution after confessing to him. When the young priest made confession to his acknowledged confessor and spiritual guide a little later, he had only to confess to the evil thoughts of the days since he last stalked the streets, thereby keeping his spiritual guide in the dark. He behaves as if in a dream when he is in the grip of this compulsion, as if he himself has become a character in the dirty movie he is watching, and in this state of disassociation picks up the first prostitute he sees, and, with release, becomes guilt-ridden and disgraced until he must seek out his secret-confessor. He will find a telephone within minutes of the event, plug in the number, wait, and say in a voice thick with mixed emotions of shame and anger, "I must see you." His secret confessor never refuses, no priest does, but he will take the confession with a heavy heart, for his friend and for himself. The confession, it seems, has become part of the compulsion, as both have come to suspect. Advice is traded, elements of which might have proven helpful to either priest, but none has been acted on, until ... the young priest, Father Michael Din, wanders into a lower East Side bar and meets Toddy Muir, a young woman as lost as he, and follows her into an underworld of drugs and violence, becomes involved in murder, and is stalked by the murderer. With his own life at stake, and the lives of others in the balance, he is tested to the limit.

"An imaginative novel." -- Katharine Kidde, The New American Library, Inc.

If you are looking for an unusual, vivid tale, combining elements of sexual compulsion and enduring love, of violence and intellectual questioning, of action so handled that it becomes morally symbolic, of the carnal and the spiritual; if you are looking for a realistic, fast-paced adventure in the underworld and a moral dream that turns into a nightmare of unreality; if you are looking for dialogue that rings with the truth of the spoken word and a story that moves with shocking speed, this is for you. Scenario for Scorsese is cinematic in scene and structure--you can see it as well as hear it. It is truly a scenario for Scorsese. -- Pre-publication review by Patricia Hill, Metro Mysteries Newsletter

Father Michael Din's baser, human desires are growing stronger and stronger each day leading him to wonder if his choice in vocations is the correct one. Through subplot and subtext, E. M. Schorb, leads his readers down the mean streets through Father Din to find meaning in our seemingly meaningless existence. To see if there's any hope left to squeeze out of modern life to make it worthwhile for anyone. Through a contest of wills which boils over into physical conflict as well, Father Din faces evil directly in the form of a Drug Dealer named Monk who fancies his customers as his very own damned "congregation". Father Din and Monk play a haphazard chess game over several days until a climatic ending. Scenario for Scorsese is an addition to the crime fiction canon that is both realistic and encompasses the complexities of the situation as no other novel has tackled before. Well worth the read.
—Anthony Dauer, Alexandria, VA.

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