Zin-Zin
Zin-Zin is the forthcoming second book release in The Pearly Gates of Purgatory series of 15 continuing novels. More information and a publication date coming soon. Check back.
“Dallas is the kind of town to spin you to a starry end.”
— Samara “Sam” Schaffer, the story’s protagonist, main character, narrator
ZIN-ZIN
Southern Gothic, gritty confessional
Summary
Zin-Zin is the second book in a 15-book Southern Gothic-inspired saga, a sprawling novel sequence that mixes semi-autobiography and fiction. (The dynamic book series is meant to be read in sequential order, as the ongoing, overreaching story, character development, details, emotional impact, major plot points, and subplots build on each other, crisscrossing and threading together book by book.)
Beautiful blonde “bombshell” Samara “Sam” Schaffer flees the Big Apple and a dangerous loan shark mob threat. When packing up her belongings in a frantic, late-night move-out, she chooses Texas as her secret destination on a toss, heads or tails—the luck of the draw. Give everyone the slip, leave no paper trail. Barely escaping the long arm of the mob, Sam and her two beloved dogs roar out of town in her pink ’59 Cadillac convertible. Her gaudy elephantine car pulls a U-Haul cargo trailer. She has a history in Texas, a dark past with violent loss.
Sam is a paranoid, traumatized, poignant, sharp-witted, and darkly funny narrator. She’s a brilliant, unstable, mob‑shadowed actress craving roots. Once in Dallas, she collides head-on with memories of her late daddy’s foibles and criminal history, and his involvement with JFK’s assassination. Sam parks in front of the Highland Park big white mansion, where she lived when she turned Sweet Sixteen. Oy vey. Flashback flickers, so many ghosts. Confetti in the head. Dallas is the land of oil, guns, money, cops, and ghosts. Everything is bigger and better in Texas. She needs to reinvent herself. She believes the hand of fate has led her here. She’s looking for love.
The sins and memories of her daddy Zach’s mob career with New Orleans Godfather Carlos Marcello continue to haunt her. It’s in the bloodline. She realizes that the events, echoes, and imprints marring her life, including the loss of her family, aren’t something random. It’s a trajectory. Lots of skeletons in the cupboard. Now, how to stay alive? It’s best to hideout and lie low. She’s been down and out before, but she hits a new low.
Broke, living in a grim, seedy, low-rent apartment on the fringes of downtown Dallas, Mesa-brain overeducated Yale graduate Sam lives life barely breathing. She survives on hope and dreams. Everything is precarious. Her white-trash, antisemitic neighbors and German landlady are bigots. They think she’s a stripper or a call girl because of her good looks and flashy Caddy. She juggles a dependence upon heavy drinking, prayer, saints’ candles, voodoo, gris-gris, and astrology, while obsessing over past trauma and present danger. She is spiritual and superstitious. Be careful.
Sam’s only friend in the Big D is a Latino laundress, who gifts her with two charm dolls to change her luck. The dollies will supposedly open new paths and bring a redeemer-lover into her life. Yeah, a rich Texan husband could save her, maybe. Sleep evades her, and nightmares besiege her. She shouldn’t smoke. Life is full of broken vows and solemn oaths.
Sam ends up at Parkland Hospital Emergency Room. A raucous scene unfolds. An old Irish priest kindly steps in to befriend her. He whisks her away from catastrophe and leads her to the church chapel. The holy man in black clergy clothing comforts her with a frank and nonjudgmental talk about fear, sin, destiny, and God’s mysteries, even as he sips from a flask and pulls a derringer from his boot. They discuss her mixed-up family’s hybrid beliefs in a gumbo of religious identity—Baptist teachings, Catholicism, Judaism, and voodooism. She pairs the Star of David with her cross. The priest promises that God hasn’t abandoned her. Likely story.
In the dimly lit hospital parking lot, Sam encounters a supposed doctor who resembles a rugged ten-gallon-hat cowboy. This could be cosmic fate. Magic. A miraculous meet-up. The two clash, they spar and flirt. The chemical attraction is over-the-top hot. The dear doctor persuades her to climb into his sleek Mercedes roadster, against her internal warnings, to drive her home. It’s a risky proposition. The convertible barrels through the dark Texas night, speeding away from downtown and into the open countryside. They head down dirt back roads. The mysterious, sexy Lone Star surgeon in a Stetson, seated in the driver’s seat, is an eyeful. Her life hinges on a stranger in the mist, a savior or a devil. He could be her salvation, her undoing, or both. She hopes he’s an affluent counterweight to poverty, living life on the lam, and the nearby specter of death. But he could be a demon in disguise.
He takes her to his eye-popping, lavish ranch. He’s the real deal, very wealthy and a thrill seeker, a bit of a God-fearing Holy Roller, wildly irresistible and frightening. He love-bombs her with a Dom champagne and a wildly crazy huge gift. But he is moody and cold as well. Possibly glaring red flags. He interrogates as if she must jump through tangled rodeo ropes. He keeps drawing her deeper into a volatile love story. The magnetism is mutual. Sam leans into the dangerous “Cinderella in Dallas” fantasy. A switch could flip with a chillingly cold ending. She gets tangled in his rich, risky world.
ZIN-ZIN
Author TJ Fisher’s synopsis, with spoilers removed
Sam and her two dogs flee Manhattan in Lulabell, packed up in a hitched-up U-Haul trailer. Fear gives wings. She points her oversized pink Caddy hood toward Dallas on a coin flip. A rich husband can save her. She has little money. Westward ho! She believes in fate.
She rents an awful rattrap Dallas dump in the shadows of such wealth. Pay cash by the week. Friendly people can be dangerous people. Sam often sits idling in front of the swanky old Highland Park mansion where she once lived as a teen. It’s the place where her daddy, “Jew Jew Man” Zachary, was arrested and hauled off by the feds. His boss, Gulf Coast Dixie Mafia King “The Little Man” Carlos Marcello, maintained deep financial interests and tentacles in Dallas.
Sam prays and struggles to find her footing in Shantytown, Dallas. She spends a lot of time driving around the Big D in her convertible, with her two dogs in the backseat, fretting about what the hell to do next. Her rodeo clown neighbor invites her to a hot-dog cookout with the other tenants. Her neighbors are bigoted Bible-Thumper White Supremacists, i.e., antisemitic. She doesn’t fit in. They ask about all her candles; is she a blonde Mexican or perhaps practicing voodoo? She unleashes on them and her German Kraut landlord about her half-Jewish heritage. Pow-pow. Take that. Probably not smart to mouth off. Whatever. Amen. Her little dab of cash will soon run out.
She calls and listens to Flavius’ outgoing voice message machine, but he doesn’t know where she is. The mob could squeeze him for her whereabouts. She gives her theatrical agent her new Texas number. Big mistake. He leaves countless messages. NYC mobster Tony seems close by. Sam befriends a South American laundress with her own secrets. Rosie gives her “charm dolls” for husband-hunting and fertility.
A mysterious call summons her to the ER at Parkland Hospital. She whirls into the “no parking” lot reserved for doctors and then hurries inside. Sam gets into a heated altercation with the cold and callous hospital staff, and a kind old Irish priest befriends her. He rescues her from apprehension by the orderlies and whisks her to the chapel for a heart-to-heart chat. The holy man calms her down. He gives her strength, prayers, and blessings.
Dallas, Texas. The dimly lit parking lot at Parkland Hospital is perilous. Sam and her new priest friend nearly get run down by an out-of-control motorcyclist. He warns her that a cowboy is following her, beware. Could be a mob hit man. The two say goodbye. She sets out to find her car. Earlier in the evening, she parked her ’59 pink Caddy convertible into a reserved space marked “Dr. Wiley” and tossed the parking attendant the keys. A sleek, triple-black Mercedes 600SL now blocks her car.
An electrifying cowboy in a Stetson appears from the mist. The mustachioed man exudes a coiled, macho menace. The hypnotic stranger claims to be Doc Wiley. They spar. He could kiss her or kill her. He insists on driving her home, but the fast-moving roadster is going the wrong way. He takes her to his big ranch. Starry, starry night. The plastic surgeon plies her with drinks, snacks, and gifts. Her Prince Charming possesses a scary split personality and a hair-trigger temper. He’s capable of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde transformations. Later, a rose floral delivery note invites to date number two. Dex’s chauffeur picks her up. He delivers her to Dr. Dex. What the hell is happening here? Shush.
