A Glimpse at the Eclipse - Literary Fiction/Family Saga - 85,000 words
OVERVIEW: A GLIMPSE AT THE ECLIPSE resonates with hope for the future and celebrates second chances as the novel highlights some of the ways in which people move their lives from darkness to light. The eight interlocking narratives that make up the novel revolve around two main characters: Oliver Siegel, a world famous photographer who loses his eyesight while high up in the Himalayas and Nikki Sakovich, a talented sculptor and seeing eye-dog trainer who grapples with her own blinding guilt over her mother’s untimely death fifteen years earlier, which may have been a murder that she unwittingly set in motion. Oliver must stave off his suicidal impulses long enough to rediscover his will to live and to rekindle his ability to love. Nikki’s journey challenges her to find forgiveness and to tap into her inner resilience. As the two fall in love and collaborate on a series of environmental art installations, their world, and the world around them changes and becomes brighter. Part family saga, part suspense, and part cultural commentary, the novel stretches across decades and continents to reveal two time-tested love stories, a daring escape from Communist Romania, a looming threat from a Mafia hit man, andand an ongoing discourse about art and imagination as catalysts for change. While each chapter stands alone as a work of short fiction, together they weave a larger tapestry. The characters reappear in different chapters, further intertwining Oliver’s and Nikki’s lives. In the final story (forty years later), their only daughter Maisie reminisces about their lives together and reveals how the world itself has journeyed from darkness to light, shining hope for humanity and survival for the planet.
COMPS: Titles include: The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford with its strong, female characters and nonlinear, family drama, The Candy House by Jennifer Egan with its structure, pacing, and artistic sensibility, Still Life by Sarah Winman with its celebration of beauty and art, and The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger with its soulful connections that transcend time.
AWARDS/ACCOLADES:
Winner, Launch Pad Prose Sixth Annual Competition, Mentorship Award
Top 100, Launch Pad Prose Fifth Annual Competition
Quarterfinalist, ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Competition, 2024 (for The Leaping Snow Leopard)
Chapter 1: The Leaping Snow Leopard - World famous photographer and champion of endangered animals, Oliver Siegel goes irreversibly blind as he’s searching for a glimpse of the elusive Snow Leopard while hiking high up in the Himalayas with his friend and guide, Henry Dorji. The two men traverse back down the mountain through some treacherous terrain and face a blinding snow storm. Out of this darkness, danger, and despair, Oliver discovers his will to live. Catapulted by a vivid memory from a recently deceased, former lover (Carmina), Oliver discovers a cave-like crevice in the mountain where they take refuge and survive the storm. Oliver has a vision of four Snow Leopards, his spirit animal, which Henry sees the next morning and photographs with Oliver’s camera. The powerful image of a leaping Snow Leopard in flight as he eclipses the sun reoccurs throughout the novel, a symbol of salvation, the brilliant and magical timing of life, and the strength of the spirit to transcend the limitations of the physical world.
Chapter 2: China Rain - Jennifer’s story opens in the year 2060 at her meditation retreat when she’s an eighty-year old woman, sitting in front of the image of Oliver’s leaping Snow Leopard. When Oliver’s pregnant girlfriend of ten years, Jennifer arrives at the airport to pick him up after he returns home blind and disappointed after an unsuccessful surgery in Switzerland, she panics and retreats to her car, leaving him to fend for himself. Oliver knows that she’s there because he picks up the scent of her unique perfume (China Rain). As anger and disappointment fuel his despair, his suicidal impulses challenge once again. Her personal and spiritual evolution has been hard won as she recall pivotal moments when she left Oliver at the airport, travelled to Michigan beg the dog trainer, Nikki to give Oliver her seeing eye-dog, Bo. Jennifer’s story culminates in the year 2035 at Oliver’s long-awaited photography exhibit at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York where she and Oliver reunite for the first time since their breakup in 2020 and her subsequent miscarriage during the pandemic. As Oliver gifts her the artist’s proof of the iconic Leaping Snow Leopard print, we catch a glimpse into their future with his wife, Nikki and their daughter, Maisie.
Chapter 3: Imagine Love - At the beginning of her romance with Oliver, Nikki reveals the emotional darkness she has been living in since the death (or possibly murder) of her mother fifteen years earlier. When she arrives at Oliver’s home in Chicago just after Christmas in 2019, Jennifer is away on a photo shoot and she and her dog, Bo are alone with Oliver. Throughout their first day together, they each share heartbreaking secrets and connect on a profound level through their mutual attraction, shared compassion, and passion for art. Nikki tells Oliver about being kidnapped as a baby and how she and her immigrant mother, Sasha had to flee New York without Nikki’s biological father, David because of a sociopathic Mafia Princess, Carmina Abruzzo who threatened to have them all killed if they remained together as a family. Nikki learns of Oliver’s connection to Carmina and opens her heart to him, finally in the clear from a threat that controlled her life. After leaving Bo with Oliver, she dreams up the idea for the Imagine Love holographic art installations, which later have a profound effect on the world and on the evolution of our collective consciousness.
Chapter 4: Walker Evans Reimagined - Nikki discovers letters from her mother on the back of her mother’s paintings, which have always lined the walls of their home for decades. In the letters, Sasha tells of her daring escape from communist Romania in the eighties when she stowed away in the wheel well of a van and the Jewish ‘grandparents’ in Paris who survived Auschwitz and orchestrated her escape. She learns the truth about her biological grandmother (Ida), a Jewish woman who gave her infant daughter (Sasha’s mother) to her non-Jewish art teachers in order to save her life. Ida died in Auschwitz, but her friends survived and lived out her dream of reuniting with her family. Other letters reveal Sasha’s first years in New York, her romance with Nikki’s father, and the terrifying kidnapping of Nikki as an infant, and the aftermath of being perpetually stalked by a hit man. Sasha’s final letter shares their biggest secret. Sasha and David had one more day together in Europe when Nikki was ten-years-old. Knowing their time was so limited, the two lovers imagined growing their love over an entire lifetime and intertwining their souls so they’re be together forever in their hearts. Nikki learns that her mother tried to find David right before her fatal car accident, which absolves Nikki of some of the guilt, further healing her heart.
Chapter 5: Just One Bark - This chapter is told from Bo’s perspective, revealing that he’s more than just a seeing eye dog. He’s a wise and gentle soul who can see into Oliver and Nikki’s hearts as he helps them fall in love. During their first few days alone together in Chicago, Bo helps Oliver adjust to his blindness. And Oliver helps Bo heal from a traumatic experience he had with his first placement as a Guide dog. A retired Major in the Army, the man had a drinking problem and took out his bitterness on Bo, torturing him and nearly killing him. But with Oliver’s gentleness, Bo’s nightmares dissipate and he finds love and comfort with Oliver. Nikki comes back to Chicago for New Year’s eve. It’s the year 2020 and even though he’ll never have perfect vision, Oliver has clarity about his love for her. Oliver and Nikki spend their first weekend together. They fall in love, but they’re interrupted by Jennifer’s unannounced return to Chicago. At a crucial moment when their new romance could get derailed, Bo barks and reveals the truth to Jennifer, setting in motion a series of events that change their lives.
Chapter 6: Double Barrel - In the final few moments of Carmina Abruzzo’s life, she sees it all so clearly, right after she has been murdered by her family’s hit man, Marco. Also known as, ‘The Artist’ because of his inventive means for murdering others, Marco made love to her, then convinced her that they were going to die together in a grand, romantic gesture, playing to her weakness, her yearning for love. Her life’s story unravels as her consciousness reverberates in a new realm. She reviews her tragic existence, starting with her absent parents, her loneliness, the sexual abuse at a young age (by Marco), and an abortion she didn’t know she was having, which left her unable to ever have children. Carmina understands the truth about her ruthless family and the price that it cost her. The only true connectedness she experienced in her lifetime was with baby Nikki after Marco kidnapped her. Carmina finally understands that all Marco ever wanted was her father’s money and her family’s power. She also knows that Marco intends to kill Nikki. She may never find redemption, but she’s determined to try to reach those who can help save Nikki.
Chapter 7: Our Collective Heart - This narrative is more collaborative (omniscient) and takes a historical view as the pandemic hits and ‘darkness’ descends on the world. Jennifer contracts the virus and loses the baby at six months in utero. By this time, they’re convinced that it’s Oliver’s child. Along with their grief, they confront rampant racism, which is personal since Nikki’s father David is black and so is Nikki. They work tirelessly on the Imagine Love project, which are circular, environmental sculptures that project a continuous stream of holograms from people (deceased and living) who proclaim messages of love. But, they don’t have the money to make it a reality. Then they welcome their daughter, Maisie who is the light of their lives. Bo falls in love with a feisty golden retriever (Bubbles), then Nikki arranges for them to have a litter, much to Maisie’s delight. Nikki’s longing to meet her father intensifies as letters from a New York law firm continue to arrive and remain unopened for fear that he’s dead. Oliver learns that the letters declare her the sole heir to Carmina’s estate. Now they can fund the Imagine Love project, which transforms the collective heart and heralds in a new Age of Compassion.
Chapter 8: When Thoughts Become Wings: David’s story is one of redemption and revival. It opens at an NFL football game when he realizes that Marco is stalking him to kill him. David has spent most of his adult life in a Special Ops unit of the army, so he calls upon his training to outsmart Marco and kill him first. Soon after, David discovers that Sasha has already died, which leaves him despondent. He drives all night to Sasha’s former home in Michigan with the hope of meeting Nikki. However, when he sees her walking Bo from afar, he can’t bring himself to approach her because of the pain he has caused them all. Years later, David sees Nikki on a morning talk show discussing her Imagine Love public art installations, holographic images of ordinary people who share one last message of love. David understands that she’s in as much pain as he’s in regarding Sasha’s death. He travels to Chicago to meet her. As Nikki opens the door, she understands immediately who he is and hugs him, freeing them both in a moment that they have been imagining for a lifetime.
Chapter 9: A Glimpse at the Eclipse - The novel culminates with Maisie’s eulogy to Oliver who has just died at the age of eighty-eight in the year, 2060. Maisie recalls moments from their lives together and weaves together snippets of the preceding stories. She pays tribute to his inner vision and his journey from darkness to a bright, love-filled life, as she finds comfort from her family with her husband Elijah (Oliver’s best friend, Henry’s son) and her ten-year old twins, who are named Sasha and Henry. Maisie celebrates Oliver’s life, while also she struggles to truly grasp his happiness, as he has lived more than half of his life shrouded in darkness. In the final moments of the novel, Maisie sits in front of an Imagine Love holographic exhibit, which her parents had created decades earlier. She catches a quick glimpse of a photo that comes to life as a hologram. It’s of her at the age of fourteen with her parents at Oliver’s photography exhibit in 2035. Oliver stands between her and Nikki, arms around them both as the photo is taken. Maisie experiences a kind of ‘eclipse of time’ as the two moments overlap and she experiences the past and the present simultaneously. In that eclipsed moment, Maisie is reassured her of the beauty and brightness in Oliver’s life as he proclaims, “If I can live my life surrounded by this much love, I will die a happy man.”