CELTICLADY'S REVIEWS: Between Before and After by Jessica Stilling Book Tour and Guest Review!

Between Before and After by Jessica Stilling

Publisher: DX Varos Publishing (November 8, 2022)
Category: General Fiction, Literary Fiction, Family Secrets
Tour Dates November 1-23
ISBN: 978-1955065665
Available in Print and ebook, 479 (or less) pages

Indie movie director Sebastian Foster has found his niche making movies based on the award-winning novels written by his estranged mother. However, his latest film, based loosely on the tragic death of his sister as a child, opens up old wounds best left under bandages.

Told in two concurrent timelines, now and when Sebastian was a teen, some twenty years ago in the mid-1990s, this story of learning unknown truths unwinds in the streets of Paris, where Sebastian lived as a teen and where he has returned to make his picture.

Excerpt Between Before and After by Jessica Stilling

Filming has only taken up a small portion of the square in front of Notre Dame. When I was a kid in the ‘90s here it used to be different. It wasn’t that big of a deal, leisurely wandering, reading, having a cup of coffee or filming a major motion picture in front of the Gothic cathedral. It had been around for 850 years, and people were sure it wasn’t going anywhere. Tourists came and pointed up at the carved stone sculptures. Goth kids begrudgingly partaking in family vacations with their stockbroker parents took pensive, still shots of the gargoyles. There was always a line to walk the many stairs to the bell tower, to reenact in whatever way possible that story of a beautiful gypsy and a grotesquely deformed but loyal man.

But now, a year after the fire, going to Notre Dame is not the same. It’s been a year since the fire and if we block off enough space we won’t get the different kinds of tourists, the men and women in mourning comparing stills of the cathedral in its former glory (and man was it glorious). They march in front of it shaking their heads, they gaze at their phones reading an article on the restoration or sadly stare into the void that is the imitation metal replica they got at the tourist shop just across the street that now sells laminated copies of the article in La Monde from the day after the fire.

I remember staring at the television as the fire raged. It was like I was waiting for a war to end. When the fire at Notre Dame started, I thought they could contain it. I refreshed the news on my phone every five seconds to see just how bad it got. I looked at that old stone building, the browning walls, the intricately carved stone sculpture and thought it couldn’t fall. We couldn’t lose it. The hubris of those first few moments was like when I came home to see my mother in tears, everyone frantic about a fire and I was sure, “Not Lucy. It’s not Lucy.” Such hubris is always punished.

The scene we’re filming today is just a few shots of the mother and the kids in front of Notre Dame. At the end of the scene the little girl lets go of a bunch of balloons. All it did was capture a day, an afternoon, only a couple of hours, but I remember that day in my own life and my mother captured so much of it. I can only hope to do the same. She made one change. There were pigeons in real life, not just balloons. My mother took the pigeons out and kept the balloons but there were both in real life. My sister loved scattering flocks of pigeons in the street.

Shot of: My mother in a yellow dress standing in front of Notre Dame like she had grown wings in the shape of the cathedral. Shot of: Lucy running around her, faster and faster. Shot of: Lucy stops, grabs my mother’s legs and hugs her. Shot of: Lucy scattering a wave of pigeons as she carries a bouquet of balloons.

The view of Notre Dame:

Shot of: Any postcard of this part of the city.

Shot of: the three of us walking the few blocks to Notre Dame. Shot of: Lucy running ahead and my mother struggling to keep up. Shot of: My sister chasing pigeons with a bundle of multi-colored balloons.

Then my mother turned that day into a scene in her novel and I’m about to film it. It’s a year after that fateful fire and we’re right in front of Notre Dame. A year later I have to find a way to get the shot, a shot that erases the fire blackened spires, using camera angles and lighting and very minimal CGI (not only will it look too fake, but we don’t have the budget). I have to go back in time, take that fire away and pretend it never happened.

I’m selling a fantasy here, not life as we know it.

I approach the balloon handler, who is marked in the script simply as Balloon Guy. We expected to do at least five takes of this scene, where the main character’s seven-year-old daughter (she’s seven, not five, in the book) grabs a bunch of balloons from a seller near Notre Dame and lets them go. The plot doesn’t depend on this scene, but it sets a tone. The way those balloons gather and then rocket into the air, the way they float just so…it’s the entire mood right there. I’m sure a shot of it will go in the title sequence.

I remember that day from real life.

Shot of: “Bastian, Bastian, this is Pigeon-land! See! I’m queen of the pigeons!” Shot of: My sister running through a flock of birds as they scatter into the sky like water splashed in a puddle.

When my mother wrote her book, she didn’t mention the pigeons. She snuffed them out and made it all about balloons. In the book my mother wrote the balloons were different colors, “like you’d get at the circus in the 1950s,” is how she put it. But now, looking at the scene, the darkened stones of the shell of Notre Dame, the way Gothic sculpture protrudes from this place, contrasted with the gray sky, red is the best color. And so, all the balloons are red. An homage to French New Wave Cinema is what I said to my assistant director, Freddy. They’re all obsessed with Francois Truffaut. Not all colors, just red, like that awning my sister loved. This is the first, the only thing, I’m willing to change about my mother’s story for the sake of the film.

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Guest Review by Laura
'Between Before and After,' by Jessica Stilling is a complex, well thought out, mind-bender of a novel that will leave any reader with a sense of wonder at the story they've just been told. I have never read anything from this author before, so I was unsure of what I was getting into when I started this, but boy did I enjoy it once I started reading!
This novel is a killer joy ride, that takes you from 1994 all the way to present day with a narrative that slowly unfolds itself as you read along. The question the narrative asks is this: “What exactly happened that day in 1994 when a young girl named Lucy Foster was killed in a tragic fire?” The answer is explained over the course of the novel and wraps up in a way that left me both satisfied and wanting to hear more.
The main character of the novel, Sebastian Foster is a director of films who mostly works on small, low-budget Indie pieces. Sebastian has seen some pretty good success in his field. He has won some awards and enough money to continue doing what he loves, but the project that he is working on now is bound to be his most difficult yet.
Temporarily titled, 'The Paris Project,' Sebastian's new film is about the fire that took the life of his five-year-old sister, Lucy and the summer that led up to that day. Using two storylines, one in current day and one in 1994, Stilling tells the story of the fire in stunning detail, leaving nothing out and ending with a finish that I never saw coming.

With, 'Between Before and After,' Jessica Stilling crafts a novel that is sure to be one of the best releases of the year.

Praise for Jessica Stilling

Bronx Council of the Arts Chapter One Award for The Beekeeper’s Daughter

“Stilling’s take on this familiar tale is provocative and poignant, rich with emotion and powerfully described, laced with profound contemplation about dying too soon and growing up too quickly.”- Publisher’s Weekly review of Betwixt and Between

“At turns happy and unbearably sad, Betwixt and Between is a beautifully realized re-imagining of a classic story that will enchant readers as the original did.”- Booklist starred review of Betwixt and Between

“A suspenseful read. Jessica Stilling sets the story among a backdrop of stunning scenes of Greece described as being almost visceral with a unique compilation of romance, mystery, and self-inspection. A compelling story that comes to life off the page.”-San Francisco Book Review of the Weary God of Ancient Travelers

Jessica Stilling has written three works of literary fiction, Betwixt and Between, The Beekeeper’s Daughter, and The Weary God of Ancient Travelers. She also wrote poetry and short fiction for various literary journals.

Her articles have appeared in Ms. Magazine, Bust Magazine and she writes extensively for The Writer Magazine. She has taught Creative Writing in both high school and university. She also publishes young adult fantasy under the pen name JM Stephen.

Jessica loves Virginia Woolf, very long walks, and currently lives in southern Vermont where she writes for the very local newspaper, The Deerfield Valley News.

Website: https://www.jessicastilling.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JessicaStilling
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jessica.sticklor

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Giveaway Between Before and After by Jessica Stilling

This giveaway is for 3 print or ebook copies. Print is open to the U.S. only and ebook is open worldwide. This giveaway ends on November 24, 2022 midnight, pacific time. Entries accepted via Rafflecopter only.

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