By Robert Graham
As an author myself, having some success with my Seventh Journey action fantasy series, I have some comments about a book I’ve come across. “A Big Wide Calm” by author Rich Marcello is a visceral love story that connects emotionally, and reveals itself in a poetic prose. It’s a journey that takes the reader through an incredible range of emotions in a roller-coaster love story between a would-be rock star named Paige, and a seasoned song writer named John Bustin. The story itself paints a backdrop that allows for a coming of age story that effectively tugs at your heart strings. It reminds me of work by mega author Nicholas Sparks, in how two souls reveal themselves to each other and the reader in a magnificent and wholesome relationship. It’s far to easy these days for authors to cast war, or violence as a way to capture various audiences or add some action. Without proper execution that can quickly overwhelm the story, and the writer loses his focus/audience. I didn’t get that from “A Big Wide Calm” as it was extremely targeted to those who love music, poetry, and a good love story.
Aside from being a well plotted romantic story, it offers something unique that I thought worth pointing out. The author used many poetic constructions throughout the novel, and some sections feel like they were singing to me, rather than being read. What’s fascinating about this is that it takes a very traditional medium, and combines rather complex emotional components rendered through an an entirely other rhythmic medium. It’s great to know that people are out there still pushing the boundaries of the medium itself, and seeing where it takes them. Luckily for the author Rich Marcello, those niches cast a large net.
Although I have musicians in my family, and I myself am able to play some guitar and can carry an “OK” tune, I never thought to approach my writings in such a manor. I went and studied the greats, such as Joseph Campbell, Einstien, Shakespeare, and many other sources of structure, and wisdom to create my overall story framework. I went through and created each story according to a 3 act, or 7 act play structure, and applied that to each book in my series, and to the series as a whole. I went right into understanding how the greats of my profession created such fascinating and profound stories, and did my best to adopt some techniques as I write my own materials. But what I’m getting at is I didn’t really break the mold per se. I rather combined various techniques to deliver my content, where Rich Marcello completely changed my opinion about how a book could be written. And that is why this book is not only a great novel, it’s a piece of art. It’s important to recognize hard work and give credit where it’s due, and so my hat’s off to Mr. Marcello, and other artists who break the mold.