Kisses from a Distance - Hardcover

Ellis, Raff

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1885942451 ISBN 13: 9781885942456

Publisher: Cune Press, 2007

Synopsis

Kisses from a Distance is a memoir that was conceived after the death of the author's mother and the discovery of a cache of over 200 letters in her personal effects. The correspondence spanned some sixty-five years and was mainly from family and friends in her native Lebanon. The discovery of the letters stimulated Mr. Ellis' memories and he began a journey to verify the truth of the stories he had heard as a youth. After several trips to the land of his ancestors, visiting with relatives on both sides of his genealogy, trips to libraries, scouring archives, and reading and collecting obscure books, he unearthed many historical facts that are unknown to the general public. The author was often surprised at what he learned and each time he thought the storyline was set it would take a different twist or turn.

The tale begins with the virtual kidnapping--and ultimate marriage--of the author's grandmother from a remote Lebanese convent in 1895. It chronicles that unhappy marriage through the birth of children, including the author's mother, family financial difficulties, and the emigration of the author's grandfather to the New World. The left behind family suffers through the First World War, the accommodations that had to be made due to the oppressive rule of their Ottoman masters, starvation, rampant disease, natural disasters, and death.

Mr. Ellis intersperses his travels in the narrative with the history of the period as it affected the Lebanese people in general and his relatives in particular. The journey spanned nearly eight years before the manuscript was finally completed.

Comprehensive written and oral records contributed to making this work into an engaging story of general interest. It ushers the reader into a world of intimate thoughts and actions, oftentimes in the characters' own words.

About this title

About the Author

Raff Ellis is a former computer industry executive and writer of short stories, essays, and political commentary. His first book, Kisses from a Distance, is being released on or about August 5, 2007 by Cune Press, Seattle, Wash.

Mr. Ellis has visited the Middle East many times, having traveled to Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, and Lebanon. He has always been interested in, if not fascinated by, the history of his Lebanese ancestors and the environment from whence they came.

His book was born of the discovery, after her death in 1994, of correspondence his mother had saved over the years from family and friends in Lebanon. After reading the letters several times, the notion that they would form the basis for a narrative took wing. An additional eight years of research and writing finally culminated in Kisses from a Distance. A graduate of LeMoyne College with a BS in Pure Science, Mr. Ellis also has a MBA from the University of Central Florida. He spent his entire business career in the computer industry, rising from the ranks of computer programmer to CEO of an Information Technology R & D firm. Raff and his wife Loretta reside in Florida.

From the Back Cover

When they were about halfway to New York, another commotion arose that swept over the ship like a tidal wave. The news concerned Archduke Ferdinand and his wife being assassinated in Serbia, which caused some to speculate that this act was a precursor to war. Toufic had never heard of these people, and it didn't occur to him that such an event would have any repercussions in his homeland.

People were talking about the Austrians, Germans, and Turks being allied against the French, British, and Russians. Rumors crossed from language to language and spread throughout the steerage compartment. This made time pass more quickly, if uneasily, as people tried to make sense of what they were hearing. Rumors begat rumors, and by the time they were mistranslated into the various tongues, they would bear no resemblance to the original story. Toufic also eavesdropped on passengers as they were reading bulletins aloud as soon as they were posted on the deck's message board. Once he heard someone say there was work in a place called Detroit and that a man named Henry Ford was paying wages of five dollars a day.

He wondered who Henry Ford was and how much five dollars was in piasters. When he was told its worth, he calculated that it would take a month to earn that at the stone quarry, which then caused him to wonder where Detroit was.

The trip from Queenstown to New York took only five days, and soon the ship dropped anchor in the Narrows of New York Harbor. An announcement was made that the boat had been placed in quarantine for a medical inspection, and they would have to wait until cleared by examiners before they could dock in New York Harbor. - Kisses from a Distance

From the Inside Flap

Kisses from a Distance chronicles a Lebanese immigrant experience -- based on a cache of more than 200 letters discovered after the death of the author's mother. This fascinating correspondence spans fifty-five years of her "kisses from a distance" from family and friends in her native Lebanon. The tale begins with the kidnapping of the author's grandmother from a remote convent in 1895. It chronicles her subsequent unhappy marriage, whose emotional and financial difficulties culminate in her husband's tragic attempt to find success in America. In the meantime, the oppressive rule of the Ottoman Empire, the ravages of the First World War, natural disasters, starvation and disease take their toll on the vulnerable people of Lebanon. Kisses also reports the travails of the author's father, who left Lebanon in 1914 to join his sister in a wintry backwater in northern New York State. When he returns to Lebanon ten years later to find a bride and bring her to America, his arranged marriage with the author's mother eerily echoes that of the previous generation, with high expectations and inevitable disappointments. Employing traditional Lebanese proverbs and folk tales, Kisses from a Distance also weaves the author's extensive research and visits to Lebanon into the narrative. This journey, so worthwhile for him, will reward the reader as well.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A man is not a stranger because you do not know him.

"Kidnapped!" she said.

"Kidnapped?" the wide-eyed boy replied. She was my mother and I was the wide-eyed boy who filed the story away in the deep recesses of his developing memory, to be dredged up after her death many years later. The story was about her mother, a story that would be contemplated and retold many times as if the mere retelling could actually change what happened.

Back in 1895, my grandmother Adela el Khazen was a young girl who had offered herself up to serve God in a virginal life of chastity, contemplation, and prayer with the Sisters of St. Francis DeSales. She could neither have known nor realized that a chance meeting some two years before would be the force that would send her life careening in a wholly unanticipated direction.

The chapel bell at the stone-walled convent had softly tolled some ten minutes before but Adela didn't take notice. Why should she? This certainly would not concern her. The tall girl in her antiseptic white habit was busily dusting the marble statuary outside the chapel, thinking only about pending evening devotions. Her contemplation was soon interrupted by one of her sister religious aspirants who told her to go immediately to mother superior's office. The request was unusual, and Adela wondered what she could have done to warrant the summons as she scurried to Mother Anisa's workplace.

At her knock, the reverend mother rose quickly and led the puzzled postulant* to the visitor's room. There, Adela was shocked to see her cousin Farid el Khazen and Fr Boulous, her parish priest, seated on the other side of the cloistered divide. Someone in the family must have died was her first reaction, for surely it was the wrong time of the year to be getting visitors, relatives or not. Cousin Farid, the neatly coifed, handlebar mustachioed young man who had been busy making a name for himself as a journalist in Jounieh, rose to greet Adela as she rushed up and stuck her fingers through the carved wooden lattice. She clutched the barrier tightly as if to strangle her mounting fear. In a voice trembling with apprehension she asked, "What has happened?" Farid quickly assured her it was not bad news that had brought them. "Why is the priest here," she then asked.

The rather rotund cleric, who remained comfortably seated, had never visited her before, so this was another cause for concern. Fr Boulos, in his turn, also assured the young girl that there was nothing to worry about as they had come on a joyous mission. Despite being puzzled by the unexpected visitation, the anticipation of dire news, and now the announcement of a joyous mission, Adela forced herself to appear calm. She warily asked the priest, whom she had never completely trusted despite his clerical collar, what he meant. Fr Boulos astonishingly replied, while mindlessly stroking his bushy beard, "We have brought you a suitor!" Of course this shocked the girl who, like anyone properly motivated to a religious vocation, would certainly not be contemplating matrimony or any of its consequences. Her first reaction was to scream a refusal of this suggestion, but her tongue grew thick and refused to cooperate.

Mother Anisa guided her to one of the rude, stiff-backed chairs and bade her sit down. Once seated, Adela looked imploringly at mother superior but did not receive the expected reassurance or support. The nun was being obsequiously deferential to the visiting priest, and avoided looking directly at her charge who was now busy praying that this was but a nightmare that would soon pass.

After what seemed an eternity, Adela composed herself enough to speak and sharply told the priest, "This is impossible!" She took pains to explain that she was to be professed* in two months, God willing, and that she had never considered the married state. Her voice trailed off as she turned to the uncharacteristically stone-faced reverend mother, a woman whom she trusted would certainly save her.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cune Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1885942451
• ISBN 13: 9781885942456
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 312